Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah released from prison after presidential pardon

CAIRO (AP) — Pro-democracy Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was released from prison late Monday after being granted a presidential pardon, according to his campaign.

“An exceptionally kind day. Alaa is free,” wrote his sister Mona Seif on social media site X along with a picture of her brother smiling with his mother Laila Soueif and sister Sanaa Seif in Cairo.

Sanaa Seif posted on Facebook that her brother arrived at home while they were waiting with for him in the prison outside Cairo.

el-Fattah and five other prisoners had been pardoned Monday after the National Council for Human Rights acted on behalf of their families and urged President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to consider the prisoners’ situation on “health and humanitarian grounds.”

His campaign said in a statement that el-Fattah was released from Wadi Natron Prison after being imprisoned almost all of the past 12 years.

He was arrested 2014 for participating in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer and briefly released in 2019 before he was detained again later that year during a security crackdown that followed rare anti-government protests in Egypt.

El-Fattah is one of the most prominent Egyptian activists in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising and his detention became emblematic of the fraying of Egypt’s democracy.

An Arab Spring activist

El-Fattah was a leading voice in the country’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising and has gone on multiple hunger strikes behind bars. His ordeal became emblematic of the fraying of Egypt’s democracy.

The activist took part in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic former President Hosni Mubarak, and later was active in protests against human rights abuses as well as military trials of civilians.

He was first sent to prison in 2014 for participating in an unauthorized protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer, before being released in early 2019. He was arrested again in September 2019 during a security crackdown that followed rare anti-government protests in Egypt, and after more than two years in pretrial detention, an emergency security court sentenced him to five years for spreading false news.

When his release date came up in September 2024, authorities refused to count his time in pretrial detention and ordered him held until Jan. 3, 2027.

Amr Magdi, senior Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that while celebrating Abd el-Fattah's pardon, thousands others remain behind bars because of their public views.

“Hopefully his release will act as a watershed moment,” providing the government with the opportunity "to end the wrongful detention of thousands of peaceful critics,” the statement said.

Hunger strike and a petition

The pardon came after an independent rights group submitted a petition to the president’s office earlier this month.

The petition had seven names. It wasn’t immediately clear if the seventh person was pardoned or not.

The National Council for Human Rights, or NCHR, acted on behalf of the families of the prisoners. It urged el-Sissi to consider el-Fattah’s situation and that of the six others on “health and humanitarian grounds," and earlier this month el-Sissi’s office said he had ordered relevant authorities to look into it.

The NCHR said in a statement Monday afternoon that it welcomes the pardon, describing it as a “step that underscores a growing commitment to reinforcing the principles of swift justice and upholding fundamental rights and freedoms.”

“This decision represents a tangible contribution to the implementation of Egypt’s National Human Rights Strategy, strengthens public trust between state institutions and society, and sends a clear signal that balancing the requirements of criminal justice with the principles of human compassion is a sustainable pillar of public policy,” the organization said in their statement.

El-Fattah’s family waged a desperate campaign to pressure Britain — whose citizenship el-Fattah had obtained in 2021 through his U.K.-born mother — to help secure his freedom and take him in. When Egypt failed to release el-Fattah last September, his mother, Soueif, began her own hunger strike in Britain, but became seriously ill and ended the strike in July.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper welcomed the pardon and said on social media site X, “I’m grateful to President Sisi for this decision.”

An influential blogger, el-Fattah hails from a family of political activists, lawyers and writers. His late father was one of Egypt’s most tireless rights lawyers, his sisters — British citizens as well — are also political activists, and his aunt is the award-winning novelist Ahdaf Soueif.

El-Fattah's most dramatic hunger strike came in 2022, as Egypt hosted an annual U.N. climate summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. That strike ended when el-Fattah lost consciousness and was revived with fluids.

Leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they sought el-Fattah’s release in private talks with el-Sissi during the climate conference.

Still, European countries, which have a growing interest in Egypt’s gas reserves, and the United States, which sees el-Sissi as a key source of stability, were reluctant to openly clash with Egypt.

Family and supporters hope for change

The circumstances surrounding the latest appeal for Abd el-Fattah’s release were different than previous ones, Ali, his lawyer, told the AP earlier this month — in part because of his mother’s hunger strike, which added a “humane” element to the petition.

“This is really promising, we hope these authorities follow through with urgency and that Alaa will be reunited with us soon,” his sister, Sanaa Seif, said on X earlier this month.

Ali said earlier this month that a court order had removed his client’s name from the government’s “terrorism list,” which would allow him to travel out of the country once he is freed though the campaign said in a statement it was unclear if el-Fattah could travel yet to see his son.