Prominent Egyptian-British political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah has ended his hunger strike after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi directed officials to examine a clemency request submitted by the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), a family member told Al Manassa.
The family source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Abdel Fattah was informed of the council’s formal appeal and decided to end his strike in the middle of last week. He subsequently notified prison authorities of the decision.
President El-Sisi instructed the relevant government bodies last Tuesday to evaluate the NCHR’s request, which calls for a presidential pardon for a group of detainees, including Abdel Fattah. The council had characterized the request, submitted one day earlier, as a “humanitarian appeal.”
“From our constitutional and legal mandate—and based on Your Excellency’s deeply paternal approach to cases involving humanitarian dimensions—we respectfully urge the exercise of your constitutional right to grant clemency to a number of individuals whose families have submitted urgent pleas for release, citing their suffering in the absence of their loved ones,” the council stated.
Abdel Fattah had resumed his hunger strike on Sept. 1, according to his mother, Laila Soueif, a professor and longtime advocate for her son’s release. In a Facebook post on Sept. 7, she wrote that her son was “furious. Ever since his name was removed from the terrorism list, National Security told him in prison that he would be released within days. It’s driving him mad that nothing has happened. It has been nearly a year since Alaa completed his sentence, and he remains behind bars.”
She added that during his hunger strike, Abdel Fattah had consumed only water, refusing oral rehydration salts and other medical supplements typically administered during prolonged fasting.
Alaa Abdel Fattah was arrested on Sept. 28, 2019, on charges including “broadcasting false news,” “misusing social media,” and “joining an illegal group.” He was sentenced to five years in Dec. 2021 by an Emergency State Security Court, after spending two years in pretrial detention.
Human rights lawyer Khaled Ali previously told Al Manassa that Alaa was due for release in September 2024. But authorities refused to count his pretrial detention toward his sentence, instead starting the five-year term on Jan. 3, 2022, the date the military ruler ratified the verdict.
