After enduring years of relentless struggle, dashed hopes, intense diplomatic pressure, and multiple hunger strikes, Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner, Alaa Abd El Fattah, has finally been pardoned by the nation’s president. This significant development was announced on Monday via a presidential statement.
For the better part of the last 12 years, Abd El Fattah, now 43, has been incarcerated due to his outspoken dissident activities. He had anticipated his release last September, having completed a five-year sentence. However, Egyptian authorities controversially argued that his two years spent in pretrial detention would not count towards his sentence, keeping him behind bars.
It remains unclear whether he has been released from prison at the time of this report.
“President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pardoned the remaining sentences of several prisoners,” the official presidential statement confirmed, specifically listing Abd El Fattah among six other detainees.
The statement added, “This decision reflects the state’s commitment to strengthening human rights initiatives, promoting tolerance, and offering those pardoned the opportunity to begin a new life.”
The prolonged fear that Abd El Fattah might be held indefinitely prompted him and his mother, Laila Soueif, to undertake repeated hunger strikes, which frequently resulted in his mother’s hospitalization.
Their deteriorating health amplified pressure on Britain, given that both mother and son hold dual British-Egyptian citizenship, urging the UK to advocate for his freedom. British officials in both Cairo and London had spent years lobbying for his release, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally addressing the case with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi earlier this year.
Despite these high-level interventions, President el-Sisi had consistently disregarded pleas from world leaders, Nobel laureates, celebrities, and activists for Abd El Fattah’s release, leading many of his supporters to lose all hope.
“President Sisi has pardoned my brother!” his sister, Sanaa Seif, exclaimed in a social media post. “Omg I can’t believe we get our lives back!”
Ms. Seif revealed that the pardon came as a complete surprise to her family.
“We learned about this just like everyone else, from the news,” she stated. “We have no idea where he is going to be released from, and are going to the prison to ask.”
Abd El Fattah stands as the most renowned activist of his generation.
A software developer and intellectual, his sharp and insightful commentary on Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring revolution established him as the foremost chronicler of its soaring hopes and eventual failures. He and his family were deeply committed to building a democratic Egypt, only to witness their aspirations shattered two years later by a military takeover led by President el-Sisi.
“Which is easier,” he pondered in a March 2014 essay. “To avoid challenging authority and to assume its good intention? Or to persuade society that it’s absurd to try to live with an authority that allows itself murder and torture and detentions?”
Since President el-Sisi assumed power in 2013, Egyptian authorities have jailed tens of thousands of perceived political opponents. Most languish in detention for months or even years without trial or formal sentencing. Instead of releasing them after they complete the maximum legal time in pretrial detention, prosecutors often introduce new charges to extend their imprisonment.
Mohamed El Raai, via Reuters
Egyptian officials have, at various times, denied the existence of political prisoners or defended the widespread arrests as vital for maintaining security after the tumultuous Arab Spring. They have frequently branded detainees as terrorists or accused them of violating laws against spreading false news.
However, whether due to global pressure or other undisclosed reasons, Abd El Fattah’s case has taken a distinct path.
He was removed from Egypt’s terrorist watch list earlier this summer. Furthermore, this month, President el-Sisi formally directed authorities to review a petition for his release.
There is no guarantee that Abd El Fattah will remain free. He was previously released after a five-year prison term in 2019, only to be rearrested six months later.
Indeed, several other prominent dissidents who were granted release from detention in recent years by the authorities later faced new charges.
Ed Ou for The New York Times
For a generation of Egyptians who converged on Cairo’s Tahrir Square in January 2011 to demand the overthrow of a despotic regime, Abd El Fattah was an icon simply known as Alaa. This was the social media handle he used to chronicle events, rally support, deliver enigmatic pronouncements, and subtly challenge the authorities.
Every word he penned was imbued with a bittersweet humor and an unwavering dedication to the ideals he championed from the very beginning.
He steadfastly maintained his course, even as many of his compatriots grew disillusioned by the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in Egypt’s first democratic presidential elections in 2012. This disillusionment led many to welcome the military takeover the following year, which ultimately restored autocratic rule.
Abd El Fattah himself condemned the Brotherhood, arguing that they had imposed changes rejected by many Egyptians and disregarded the revolution’s democratic aspirations.
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
“But the military are not waging war against the Brotherhood for our sake,” he presciently warned.
That particular post proved to be almost prophetic.
Within a few years, the new military government, under President el-Sisi, broadened its crackdown, targeting not only Islamists but also liberal, secular Egyptians. It arrested opposition politicians, human rights activists, journalists, academics, researchers, and others who had thrived in the brief political opening that followed the revolution.
Some opponents of the state were labeled as terrorists, while views contrary to the government’s narrative were branded as “fake news,” a criminal charge used against thousands.
Security services later extended their dragnet to Egyptians with little or no public profile, including those who posted satirical memes about President el-Sisi, liked or shared social media content critical of the government, or simply walked through Tahrir Square on the revolution’s anniversary—all in an apparent effort to prevent any resurgence of dissent.
If anyone possessed the potential to ignite new waves of protest, it was Abd El Fattah.
Born into a family of leftist intellectuals and dissidents in Cairo, he was first arrested in 2006 under former President Hosni Mubarak, after participating in a protest advocating for judicial independence.
In 2011, amidst street battles in Cairo following Mubarak’s resignation, Abd El Fattah penned a newspaper article about the military’s killing of Coptic Christian protesters. This led to his second arrest, this time by the military authorities governing the country after Mubarak’s fall.
After the military once again seized power in 2013, Abd El Fattah was arrested yet again, on what he claimed were false charges of organizing a demonstration—an act that would have violated Egypt’s protest laws.
In December 2021, he faced trial for an old social media post concerning human rights violations in prison. Neither the prosecution nor the defense presented arguments, and he was convicted of spreading fake news, receiving a five-year prison sentence.
Abd El Fattah was already on a hunger strike when the annual United Nations climate summit, and its accompanying global attention, arrived in Egypt in late 2022. At that critical moment, he escalated his protest by refusing water, hoping to draw international focus to his plight.
However, Egypt remained unyielding.
He eventually ended his strike days later after experiencing a severe emotional and physical breakdown, his family reported at the time.
From Egypt’s notoriously harsh Tora Prison, where numerous high-profile political prisoners are held, he authored a series of essays. These writings delved into the collapse of the 2011 revolution, the deceptive allure of hope, the struggle for meaning while incarcerated, and, consistently, the escalating authoritarianism of Egypt’s new leadership.
A compilation of his writings and social media posts, titled “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated,” was published in 2021.
While the title itself conveys defiance, the piece from which it is drawn—a letter he wrote from prison to attendees of a human rights conference—strikes a more poignant chord.
“Unlike me,” he wrote, “you have not yet been defeated.”
Erika Solomon and Rania Khaled also contributed to this report.
Correction: Sept. 22, 2025
An earlier version of this article contained an imprecise reference to Alaa Abd El Fattah’s most recent imprisonment. He was initially detained in 2019, but his formal sentencing did not occur until two years later.
Vivian Yee is a Times reporter covering North Africa and the broader Middle East. She is based in Cairo.