Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who has been imprisoned for six years, according to state media and his lawyer. Abd El-Fattah is among six individuals whose sentences were commuted following a request from the National Council for Human Rights. His lawyer confirmed the news, expressing gratitude on social media.
The 43-year-old blogger and pro-democracy advocate is one of Egypt’s most recognized political prisoners. He was arrested in 2019, shortly after completing a prior five-year sentence, and convicted in 2021 for “spreading false news” related to a social media post about torture in Egypt. His expected release date was in September 2024, but Egyptian authorities did not count over two years spent in pre-trial detention towards his sentence. Both Abd El-Fattah and his mother, Laila Soueif, had undertaken hunger strikes to protest his imprisonment.