By Eniola Amadu
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned prominent Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, ending years of detention that drew global criticism and repeated hunger strikes from the 43-year-old, state-linked Al Qahera News reported on Monday.
Abd el-Fattah rose to prominence as one of Egypt’s most outspoken pro-democracy campaigners during and after the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Over the past decade, he became the country’s most recognised political prisoner and a symbol of resistance to Sisi’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.
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The decision followed mounting domestic and international campaigns for his release. His case came into sharp focus during the 2022 COP27 climate summit hosted by Egypt, when world leaders publicly raised his plight.
In September, Sisi ordered authorities to review a possible pardon after Abd el-Fattah’s name was quietly removed from Egypt’s terrorism watchlist, signaling a potential shift.
Abd el-Fattah, who obtained British citizenship in 2021 through his mother, belongs to a family of prominent activists and intellectuals.
His mother, Laila Soueif, has been at the forefront of efforts to free him, meeting British Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this year to lobby for his release.
His legal troubles span more than a decade. In 2014, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for protesting without permission — later reduced to five.
Freed in 2019, he was placed under parole restrictions but was soon rearrested for allegedly spreading false news after sharing a Facebook post about a prisoner’s death. That charge led to another five-year sentence.
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While in custody, Abd el-Fattah launched several hunger strikes to protest what he called unjust imprisonment and to show solidarity with his mother, who herself staged a lengthy hunger strike in Britain last year.
