RSF welcomes presidential pardon for British-Egyptian journalist Alaa Abdel Fattah and calls for his immediate release

The pardon follows years of campaigning led by the family of Abdel Fattah, whose detention was confirmed as unlawful by UN expertsearlier this year. Repeatedly imprisoned over more than a decade, Abdel Fattah was most recently arrested in 2019, subsequently receiving a five-year sentence. On Monday, Alaa's family confirmed that he had received a presidential pardon -one of six prisoners to do so following a request by Egypt's National Council for Human Rights - but said it was still not clear when he would be freed.

Welcoming the pardon, the president of Egypt's Journalists Syndicate Khaled al-Balshy said he hoped it would be followed by a review and release of all "fellow journalists whose freedom is restricted, as well as all those imprisoned for expressing their opinions". In particular, he called on the president to pardon blogger Mohamed Oxygen,a former RSF award laureate who was also imprisoned in September 2019. RSF has repeatedly called for Oxygen's immediate and unconditional release.

Egypt ranks 170out of 180 countries and territories in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index due to the frequency of censorship, police raids, arrests, shutdowns, sham trials, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions.