Egypt Announces Pardon For Top Activist Who's Spent 6 Years Behind Bars

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities on Monday announced the presidential pardon of prominent activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, according to his lawyer Khaled Ali and an announcement by Egypt’s state TV. Abd el-Fattah, who has been in prison for six years, is a top activist and was a leading voice in the country’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising who went on hunger strikes behind bars and whose ordeal became emblematic of Egypt’s democratic backsliding.
Abd el-Fattah is one of the six people whose sentences President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi commuted following a request from the National Council for Human Rights, according to the state media. It was not immediately clear when they will walk free. Abd el-Fattah's lawyer confirmed the news and wrote on X: "Praise be to God."

The 43-year-old blogger and pro-democracy activist is one of Egypt's best known political prisoners.

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He was arrested in 2019, months after finishing a previous five-year sentence, and convicted in 2021 of "spreading false news" for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt.
He should have been released in September 2024. However, Egyptian authorities refused to count the more than two years he spent in pre-trial detention towards his time served.
He and his mother, Laila Soueif, staged hunger strikes to protest against his imprisonment. (With AP inputs)