CAIRO: Prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah was released from prison in Cairo, his family said on Tuesday, prompting an emotional reunion with his loved ones after a pardon from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Abdel Fattah, 43, was a leading figure in Egypt’s 2011 uprising and an outspoken critic of the country’s authorities who had been jailed for the better part of the past decade.
His lawyer and a high-ranking Egyptian official confirmed on Monday that El-Sisi had granted him a presidential pardon and that he would soon walk free from Wadi Al-Natrun Prison, a major penitentiary on the outskirts of the capital Cairo.
Social media posts by his family members early on Tuesday showed Abdel Fattah enjoying an emotional reunion with his loved ones following his release.
“Home,” read a post from an official X account that had advocated for his release, accompanied by a photograph of a smiling Abdel Fattah in a baggy yellow T-shirt embracing his mother, Laila Soueif.
Abdel Fattah’s sister Mona Seif, herself a well-known activist, hailed on X “an exceptionally kind day” and posted a photo of herself, apparently overwhelmed with emotion, with her arm around her beaming brother’s shoulders.
Over the past two decades, Abdel Fattah has been imprisoned under every Egyptian administration, from ousted president Hosni Mubarak to the current president El-Sisi.
He was last arrested in 2019 and sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison for “spreading false news” after sharing a Facebook post about alleged torture in Egyptian jails.
His sentence was due to end in September 2024, but authorities refused to count his remand period as part of it.
Soueif recently ended a 10-month hunger strike demanding her son’s release.
Abdel Fattah had escalated his own such strike, held in solidarity with her, at the start of September.
On Monday, the state-affiliated Al-Qahera News channel reported that El-Sisi had pardoned “a number of convicted persons, after taking the constitutional and legal procedures in this regard.”
“The pardon includes... Alaa Ahmed Seif El-Islam Abdel Fattah,” added the channel, which is linked to Egypt’s state intelligence service.
Tarek Al-Awady, a member of Egypt’s presidential pardons committee, later said all procedures for the pardon had been finalized and Abdel Fattah was awaiting his imminent release.
Abdel Fattah’s lawyer separately confirmed the pardon, which took place along with five other people.
Pardon petition
The move came after El-Sisi ordered relevant authorities earlier this month to study a petition submitted by the state-affiliated National Council for Human Rights to pardon a number of individuals, including Abdel Fattah.
It also followed a decision by a Cairo criminal court to remove Abdel Fattah from the country’s terrorism list, ruling that recent investigations showed no evidence linking him to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the pardon as “long overdue good news,” calling for the release of other dissidents.
“Though we celebrate his pardon, thousands of people like Alaa are still languishing in Egyptian jails simply for exercising their rights to freedom of speech,” said Amr Magdi, HRW’s senior Middle East and North Africa researcher.
“Hopefully his release will act as a watershed moment and provide an opportunity for El-Sisi’s government to end the wrongful detention of thousands of peaceful critics.”
The British government had consistently raised Abdel Fattah’s case with Egyptian authorities, including during talks between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and El-Sisi.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper welcomed the pardon on X, saying she was “grateful to President El-Sisi for this decision.”
“We look forward to Alaa being able to return to the UK, to be reunited with his family,” Cooper wrote.
In May, a United Nations panel of experts determined that Abdel Fattah’s detention was arbitrary and illegal, and called for his immediate release.
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, El-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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Egypt frees activist Alaa Abdel Fattah after El-Sisi pardon
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Egypt frees activist Alaa Abdel Fattah after El-Sisi pardon
- Prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah was released from prison in Cairo, his family said on Tuesday
How succession works in Iran and who will be the country’s next supreme leader?
DUBAI: The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after almost 37 years in power raises paramount questions about the country’s future. The contours of a complex succession process began to take shape the morning after Khamenei’s assassination.
Here is what to know:
A temporary leadership council assumes duties
As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.
The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”
A panel of clerics selects a new supreme leader
Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog. That body is known for disqualifying candidates in various elections in Iran and the Assembly of Experts is no different. The Guardian Council barred former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate whose administration struck the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.
Khamenei’s son could be a possible contender
Clerical deliberations about succession and machinations over it take place far from the public eye, making it hard to gauge who may be a top contender.
Previously, it was thought Khamenei’s protégé, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, may try to take the mantle. However, he was killed in a May 2024 helicopter crash. That has left one of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, as a potential candidate, though he has never held government office. But a father-to-son transfer in the case of a supreme leader could spark anger, not only among Iranians already critical of clerical rule, but also among supporters of the system. Some may see it as un-Islamic and in line with creating a new, religious dynasty after the 1979 collapse of the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government.
A transition like this has happened only once before
There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of supreme leader of Iran, the paramount decision-maker since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 1989, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and leading Iran through its bloody eight-year war with Iraq. This transition now comes after Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 as well.
The vast powers of a supreme leader
The supreme leader is at the heart of Iran’s complex power-sharing Shiite theocracy and has final say over all matters of state.
He also serves as the commander-in-chief of the country’s military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2019 and which Khamenei empowered during his rule. The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a series of militant groups and allies across the Middle East meant to counter the US and Israel, also has extensive wealth and holdings in Iran.
Here is what to know:
A temporary leadership council assumes duties
As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.
The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”
A panel of clerics selects a new supreme leader
Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog. That body is known for disqualifying candidates in various elections in Iran and the Assembly of Experts is no different. The Guardian Council barred former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate whose administration struck the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.
Khamenei’s son could be a possible contender
Clerical deliberations about succession and machinations over it take place far from the public eye, making it hard to gauge who may be a top contender.
Previously, it was thought Khamenei’s protégé, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, may try to take the mantle. However, he was killed in a May 2024 helicopter crash. That has left one of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, as a potential candidate, though he has never held government office. But a father-to-son transfer in the case of a supreme leader could spark anger, not only among Iranians already critical of clerical rule, but also among supporters of the system. Some may see it as un-Islamic and in line with creating a new, religious dynasty after the 1979 collapse of the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government.
A transition like this has happened only once before
There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of supreme leader of Iran, the paramount decision-maker since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 1989, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and leading Iran through its bloody eight-year war with Iraq. This transition now comes after Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 as well.
The vast powers of a supreme leader
The supreme leader is at the heart of Iran’s complex power-sharing Shiite theocracy and has final say over all matters of state.
He also serves as the commander-in-chief of the country’s military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2019 and which Khamenei empowered during his rule. The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a series of militant groups and allies across the Middle East meant to counter the US and Israel, also has extensive wealth and holdings in Iran.
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