Freedom for Alaa at last

Alaa Abd El Fattah's family celebrated his release from prison early on Tuesday morning, almost six years after the day authorities detained him at Dokki Police Station.

The release of the writer, programmer and activist came as a great relief after years of unyielding efforts for a goal that had often seemed out of reach.

Alaa, who has faced arrest and prosecution in relation to his activism since 2006, was arrested on September 29, 2019 from the same police station. Authorities held the activist in remand detention for two years before he was finally tried on false news charges and sentenced to a five-year prison term.

Yet when the five years elapsed in September last year, authorities refused to count his years in remand toward his sentence.

Since then, his family, friends and political community, led by his mother, Laila Soueif, have been tireless in campaigning to apply pressure for his release on authorities in both Egypt and the United Kingdom, where the family also hold nationality.

The news of Abd El Fattah’s presidential pardon yesterday came as a welcome shock to his family, who heard it first on state television, like everyone else. “My heart is gonna stop,” said his sister, Mona Seif.

Not knowing when or from where he would be released, the activists’ friends headed with Soueif and Abd El Fattah’s other sister, Sanaa Seif, to Wadi al-Natrun prison, the facility where he had been held since 2022.

They were surprised again hours later to hear that he would be released from Dokki Police Station.

Everyone rushed back to their home, where Abd El Fattah was awaiting them, free for the first time in six years. Photos and videos showed the activist hugging his mother and sister and joyous celebrations among the dozens of friends who had gathered at their Giza home.

This moment of joy and relief followed years of work by the family to pressure both Egyptian and British authorities for Abd El Fattah’s release.

Protestors and civil society notably rallied at COP27, hosted in Sharm el-Sheikh, while petitions and regular sit-ins were staged outside the London Foreign Office by Free Alaa and other campaign groups.

These efforts were led by Soueif, who almost paid with her life to secure the release of her son after beginning a hunger strike in October 2024 that lasted 300 days and took a serious toll on her health, leading to her repeated hospitalization. 

Finally, near the end of her strike, signs of hope began to appear. The family expressed cautious optimism when UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer finally pressed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to release Abd El Fattah in an official phone call.

Soueif would soon end the strike, following medical advice. Her July decision was followed days later by another good sign: her son’s name was finally removed from the national terror lists. 

As Soueif would later explain, the National Security Agency promised Abd El Fattah at the time of his removal from the national terror lists that he would soon be released. Over a month passed, however, with no progress toward his release, a lack of clarity that muddied expectations around the release timeline and prompted Abd El Fattah to go on another hunger strike at the beginning of September. 

This delay, despite the promise of release, came amid a spike in diplomatic tensions between Egypt and the UK, sparked by the August arrest in London of pro-government activist Ahmed ‘Mido’ Abdel Qader, after he assaulted anti-government protesters outside the Egyptian Embassy who had accused Egypt of participating in the Israeli siege on Gaza. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has been pushing for Mido’s release.

A week after Abd El Fattah announced the new strike, the National Council for Human Rights petitioned the president to consider him and six other prisoners for amnesty. Soon after, the presidency announced that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had instructed the “relevant authorities to review the application.”

The presidency’s assent to the releases was ultimately announced on Al-Qahera News on Monday night, with the presidential pardon freeing Abd El Fattah and five other prisoners — excluding the sixth prisoner NCHR petitioned for, Mohamed Awad Abdu Mohamed.

And hours later, Abd El Fattah was finally on the asphalt.