Daijiworld Media Network - Cairo

Cairo, Sep 24: Prominent Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah walked free on Tuesday after spending most of the last 12 years behind bars, a day after President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi granted him and five others a presidential pardon, his family confirmed.

“I can’t even describe what I feel,” said his mother, Laila Soueif, at their Giza home as relatives and friends celebrated. “We’re happy, of course. But our greatest joy will come when there are no political prisoners in Egypt.”

Abd El-Fattah, long considered a symbol of Egypt’s shrinking democratic space, was jailed multiple times for criticising crackdowns on dissent. First detained before the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, he faced his longest prison term after el-Sisi came to power in 2014, rece

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