Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi issues a pardon for prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been jailed for the better part of the past decade, a member of the presidential pardon committee and his lawyer says.
The 43-year-old British-Egyptian national, who was pardoned alongside five others, was a leading figure in Egypt’s 2011 uprising and has been repeatedly jailed since.
Following his latest arrest in 2019, Abdel Fattah was sentenced in December 2021 to five years in prison for “spreading false news” after sharing a Facebook post about alleged torture in Egyptian jails.
Tarek al-Awady, a member of Egypt’s presidential pardons committee, says all procedures for the pardon had been finalized and the prison was awaiting the arrival of the presidential decree to implement it.
Alaa’s mother, the activist and academic Laila Soueif, recently ended a 10-month hunger strike demanding his release.
Abdel Fattah himself has been on hunger strike since the start of September, following a partial strike that began in March in solidarity with his mother.
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