Jailed dissident Alaa Abd el-Fattah pardoned by Egypt's president

Egyptian-British blogger and activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah,rose to prominence during the Arab Spring has been pardoned by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Egyptian-British blogger and activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah,rose to prominence as an impassioned voice in the Arab Spring uprising that toppled Egypt's veteran autocrat and has since become a symbol of the struggle for human rights in his country.

On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pardoned Abdel-Fattah, Egyptian TV channels close to the government reported, less than two weeks after Sisi ordered authorities to study his release.

Repeated family campaigns and pressure from the British government, including a plea from Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Sisi in February, had previously failed to secure his release.

Abdel-Fattah, 43, has spent almost all of the past decade in prison, most recently serving a five-year sentence that was imposed in December 2021 after he shared a social media post about a prisoner's death.

His mother, Laila Soueif, said in a social media post earlier this month that he had started the latest in a series of hunger strikes on September 1 in protest against his detention.