A British-Egyptian activist who has spent years in prison has been pardoned by Egypt’s president, according to his lawyer.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah became a prominent campaigner during protests in Cairo in 2011 that led to the downfall of former president Hosni Mubarak.
In 2014, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison – later reduced to five – for protesting without permission.
He was released in 2019 but was arrested again that year for sharing a Facebook post about human rights abuses in Egyptian prisons, leading to another five-year term in 2021 for “spreading fake news”.
High-profile local and international campaigns have called for his release and last year Egypt removed him from its “terrorism” list.
Mr Fattah has British citizenship through his mother, who went on hunger strike over his case and met Sir Keir Starmer to push for her son’s freedom.
The 43-year-old also undertook multiple hunger strikes of his own to highlight his case.
Today his lawyer, Khaled Ali, writing in Arabic on Facebook, posted: “God is the judge. The President of the Republic has issued a decree pardoning Alaa Abdel Fattah. Congratulations.”
Mr Fattah became known for his blogging and social media activity during the Arab Spring protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square 14 years ago.
But a wide-ranging crackdown on Islamists, liberals and leftists by the new president, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, led to the activist being imprisoned for the first time.
During his second spell in jail, his family said he was locked up without sunlight, exercise and books – and abused by the guards.
Mr Fattah’s mother – a former maths professor- and lawyer father, who died in 2014. were also both activists.
Khaled Ali tried to get Mr Fattah freed in 2024, arguing his two years of pre-trial detention should be counted, but prosecutors resisted and said he wouldn’t be allowed out until January 2027.
The refusal prompted the campaigner’s mother, Laila Soueif, to begin another hunger strike in September last year, which she only ended two months ago following pleas from her family after she lost 35kg.
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