Egyptian pro-democracy activist released from prison, after 12 years behind bars

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.