Sisi Frees Alaa Abdel Fattah

According to reports from media outlets connected to the government, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted a pardon on Monday to A...

According to reports from media outlets connected to the government, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi granted a pardon on Monday to Alaa Abdel Fattah, a well-known activist who has spent much of the last ten years in prison.

The 43-year-old British-Egyptian citizen, who received a pardon along with five others, was a prominent activist in Egypt's 2011 revolution and had been imprisoned by every government since then.

After his most recent apprehension in 2019, Abdel Fattah received a five-year prison sentence in December 2021 for "spreading false news." This charge stemmed from his sharing of a Facebook post concerning purported torture incidents within Egyptian prisons.

Al-Qahera News, a media outlet connected to Egypt's state intelligence, reported that Sisi granted amnesty to "a number of convicted persons," following all required constitutional and legal steps.

The statement also mentioned that Alaa Ahmed Seif El-Islam Abdel Fattah was among those pardoned.

Alaa's mother, Laila Soueif, who is an activist and academic, recently stopped a 10-month hunger strike in an effort to secure his freedom.

Abdel Fattah has been refusing food since the beginning of September, after previously engaging in a limited hunger strike from March to support his mother.

Sanaa Seif, sister of Abdel Fattah, announced on X that "President Sisi has pardoned my brother!" She added, "Mum and I are on our way to the prison to find out where and when Alaa will be freed."

"I'm so happy we're getting our lives back," she exclaimed.

Mona Seif, his other sister, also shared her reaction soon after the pardon, stating: "I feel like my heart is about to give out."

Abdel Fattah was scheduled to be released in September 2024, but officials declined to recognize the time he spent in custody awaiting trial as time served.

Tarek al-Awady, who serves on Egypt's presidential clemency board, stated that all necessary steps are complete, and the prison is now waiting for the presidential order to be carried out.

Awady informed AFP that "he will be freed straight from Wadi al-Natrun Prison," mentioning a significant jail facility near Cairo.

– Pardon petition –

The pardon issued on Monday follows President Sisi's instruction earlier in the month for officials to review a request from the government-linked National Council for Human Rights to pardon several people, including Abdel Fattah.

This action came after a Cairo criminal court's determination to take Abdel Fattah off the nation's terrorism registry. The court concluded that current inquiries revealed no connection between him and the banned Muslim Brotherhood organization.

The British government has consistently raised Abdel Fattah’s case with Egyptian authorities, including during talks between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Sisi.

In May, a group of specialists working with the United Nations concluded that his imprisonment was unjustified and against the law, and they demanded that he be freed right away.

Last month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk also urged the Egyptian authorities to end a practice allowing the prolonged arbitrary detention of government critics.

The practice, known as “rotation”, often involves lodging new charges against detainees just before their remand period comes to an end.

Turk said the practice “appears to be used to circumvent the rights of individuals to liberty, due process and equality before the law”.

Since 2022, Sisi’s administration has released hundreds of detainees and pardoned several high-profile dissidents, including Abdel Fattah’s lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer.

Despite Abdel Fattah’s pardon, hundreds of other activists and politicians remain behind bars.

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