Outstanding Egyptian-British human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah has been freed after spending a lot of the previous 12 years in jail, his household mentioned, a day after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi pardoned him and 5 different prisoners.
“I can’t even describe what I really feel,” Abd El-Fattah’s mom, Laila Soueif, mentioned from her home in Giza early on Tuesday as she stood subsequent to her son, surrounded by jubilant household and pals.
“We’re comfortable, in fact. However our best pleasure will come when there are not any [political] prisoners in Egypt,” she mentioned.
Thought-about to be among the many most high-profile political prisoners in Egypt, Abd El-Fattah’s prolonged imprisonment and repeated starvation strikes had prompted international pleas for the Egyptian authorities to launch him.
The previous blogger had been detained earlier than the Arab Spring rebellion that toppled Egypt’s hardline chief, Hosni Mubarak, in 2011 and throughout the years of upheaval that adopted.
But it surely was his criticism of presidency crackdowns on political dissidents after then-army chief el-Sisi gained energy in Egypt in 2014 that landed him his lengthiest jail stints by far.
In 2014, he was sentenced to fifteen years in jail for protesting with out permission. He was briefly launched in 2019, however remained on parole, and was arrested once more later that yr and sentenced to a different five-year time period.
Associates, household and supporters shared photographs on social media of the activist after his launch, exhibiting a smiling Abd El-Fattah embracing his mom and different family members.
His sister, Mona Seif, celebrated her brother’s launch on social media: “The world is filled with nightmares, injustice, violence, and plenty of issues that break the center.. however we will take a breath and provides happiness an opportunity to fill our hearts.. and maintain going.”
“Oh Lord, the identical pleasure for the households of all of the detainees,” she wrote in a separate publish.
“Are you able to think about if this occurred, how a lot magnificence and happiness would fill our world in a single second?”
An exceptionally form day 💛
Alaa is free pic.twitter.com/nmg4oROSTi
— Mona Seif (@Monasosh) September 22, 2025
Abd El-Fattah’s prolonged detention had change into emblematic of the fraying of Egypt’s democracy.
“I strongly welcome the information that Alaa Abd El-Fattah has acquired a Presidential pardon,” United Kingdom Overseas Secretary Yvette Cooper mentioned.
“I’m grateful to President Sisi for this determination. We sit up for Alaa with the ability to return to the UK, to be reunited along with his household.”
Abd El-Fattah, who obtained UK citizenship via his mom in 2021, comes from a household of well-known activists and intellectuals who had launched a number of campaigns for his launch.
His mom met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier this yr to foyer for her son’s launch.
Intensifying her marketing campaign in September 2024, when she was anticipating her son’s launch as a result of time he spent in pre-trial detention, Soueif staged a prolonged starvation strike within the UK, ending it solely after pleas from her household as her well being considerably deteriorated.
Starmer had promised he would do every part he might to safe the discharge of Abd El-Fattah, who has additionally staged a number of starvation strikes in detention, most lately in early September, to protest towards his imprisonment and in solidarity along with his mom.
However his most dramatic hunger strike was in 2022, as Egypt hosted the annual United Nations local weather summit within the Pink Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. The strike ended when Abd El-Fattah misplaced consciousness and was revived with fluids.
Egypt’s Nationwide Council for Human Rights, a state-funded physique, additionally welcomed his launch, saying it signalled a rising emphasis on swift justice for Egyptian authorities.
