Sanaa and Mona Seif, sisters of imprisoned political activist and software developer Alaa Abdel Fattah, renewed their plea to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for a presidential pardon. Alaa is held in Wadi Al-Natrun prison, where he has been on hunger strike for three months in protest at his ongoing detention.
“Khaled, Alaa’s only son, has spent his entire childhood deprived of his father, and is now beginning his teens while in dire need of his father’s presence,” they said. “Khaled was diagnosed years ago as being on the autism spectrum, and he faces extraordinary challenges in communication, development, and integration into society.”
The family has previously submitted two formal pardon requests to the presidency. In mid-May, Sanaa Seif and Gameela Ismail, president of the Constitution Party, delivered a petition supported by medical reports showing the declining health of Alaa’s mother, academic Laila Soueif, due to her hunger strike.
Earlier in March, a delegation of women submitted a letter of appeal to First Lady Entissar El-Sisi, signed by 665 Egyptian women, calling for Alaa’s release and warning that his continued imprisonment threatens his mother’s life.
On Dec. 4, his sister Mona submitted another request to the presidency through an intermediary. She told Al Manassa at the time that she had also made similar appeals earlier via the Presidential Pardon Committee and the National Council for Human Rights but had received no reply.
In their latest statement, Alaa’s sisters wrote: “Our mother’s health is clearly declining. As her daughters, we live in fear each day as we witness her exhaustion and grief, alongside our brother Alaa, who is approaching his mid-forties and only wishes to live a more normal life and to be part of his son Khaled’s life—the one who suffers most from his absence.”
“What Alaa longs for most is to be released, to take care of his son, and to reclaim the years of fatherhood he lost,” they added. “And we wish for our mother to enjoy time with her children and grandchildren—a life we’ve all been deprived of for over a decade.”
Last Saturday, the presidency in Abdeen received another request for a pardon for Alaa, submitted by a group of activists including lawyer Mahienour El-Massry, April 6 Youth Movement founder Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma, and Asmaa Mahfouz, on behalf of a broader circle of rights advocates.
At the same time, 128 former detainees urged the authorities to act with “wisdom and responsibility at this critical historical moment” and to release Alaa “in a way befitting a strong state capable of correcting its path without hesitation.”
In their statement they stated, “We, the undersigned—Egyptian men and women who have previously spent time in Egyptian prisons on charges similar to those brought against Alaa Abdel Fattah, ranging from spreading false news to unlawful assembly and joining a terrorist organization, or others related to freedom of expression and public life—were once part of this same cycle. What sets us apart from Alaa and others still detained is that the state, at different points, chose to release us—whether through parole, a presidential pardon, or after completing our sentences.”
They continued: “We are deeply alarmed by the condition of Laila Soueif, a university professor who has devoted her life to science and education. She now struggles, with her body and her spirit, to save her son. In her defiance we hear echoes of hundreds of families broken by prison, of parents, siblings, and children who tried to be heard but confronted a wall of silence.”
The signatories represented a diverse group, including former MP Ziad El-Elaimy, political researchers Shady El-Ghazaly Harb, Patrick Zaki, Abdelrahman ElGendy, and Ismail Alexandrani, journalists Solafa Magdy, Basma Mostafa, and Amr Badr, lawyers Mahienour El-Massry and Malek Adly, poets Omar Hazek and Ahmed Douma, and Egyptian-American charity worker and social activist Aya Hijazi.
In another development, on Sunday, students at Cairo University submitted a formal letter to the university administration, urging it to advocate for the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, son of mathematics professor Laila Soueif. The administration declined to accept the letter, citing a policy against group submissions. Consequently, journalism student Hossam Mahmoud resubmitted the appeal individually.
Laila Soueif, 69, launched a full hunger strike the day after Alaa’s sentence ended. After 156 days, and amid renewed optimism about a pardon, she shifted to a partial strike in March, limiting herself to 300 calories per day.
Late last week, nine days after resuming her full hunger strike, her condition worsened, and she was again admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital in London.
In December 2021, the Emergency Supreme State Security Court sentenced Alaa to five years in prison for “spreading false news.” He had already been in pretrial detention since September 2019. Yet, according to his defense team, the authorities maintain that his sentence began only in January 2022, when the military governor ratified it, excluding the pretrial period, in violation of Egyptian law.
Article 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that sentences restricting liberty should begin “from the date of arrest based on the enforceable sentence,” with pretrial detention to be deducted. Article 484 adds that, where multiple prison sentences are imposed, the deduction should begin with the shortest sentence.
