RSF - Reporters sans frontières

09/23/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/23/2025 02:32

British-Egyptian journalist Alaa Abdel Fattah finally freed from prison in Egypt

After almost a decade in jail, British-Egyptian journalist and writer Alaa Abdel Fattah has finally been released from prison in Egypt. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) celebrates his freedom, and hopes it can mark a turning point in Egypt's sweeping repression of independent media voices.

Abdel Fattah was reunited with his mother Laila Soueif and sister Sanaa Seif in Egypt on the night of 22 September, having been granted a presidential pardon. It was not clear whether he would be permitted to travel on to the United Kingdom, which is home to his son. He had served almost six years continuously in prison on an arbitrary charge of "spreading false news", after he shared a Facebook post about torture in Egyptian prisons, and had previously spent more than four years in prison for protesting against repression.

"We are deeply relieved to see Alaa Abdel Fattah finally walk free. What he and his family have been through is unimaginable: he should never have gone to prison, and his family should never have had to mount a years-long international campaign to free him. His pardon and release must mark a definitive end to their ordeal and, after so many lost years, he must be allowed to travel freely to the United Kingdom to be reunited with his son Khaled. As we celebrate Alaa's freedom, we also remember the 19 other journalists still languishing in Egyptian jails, and hope that the long overdue resolution of this emblematic case will mark a turning point in Egypt's grim history of repressing independent voices. Journalism is not a crime: those media workers still in jail must be released immediately.

Fiona O'Brien
RSF UK Director

International campaign

Abdel Fattah's release from a detention declared unlawful by UN expertsfollows years of vigorous campaigning. He and his mother have both undertaken long periods of hunger strike, with Soueif coming close to deathearlier this year after spending 287 days without food in a desperate bid to convince the UK Government to pressure Egypt to free her son.

RSF has worked intensively on the campaign, with the family and a number of NGOs; there has also been wide, cross-party support in the British parliament. The UK Government has been deeply engaged in the case over the past year, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer talking several times to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Nobel Laureates, writers and public figures across the world have also repeatedly called for Abdel Fattah's release.

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.

Published on23.09.2025
  • MIDDLE EAST - NORTH AFRICA
  • Egypt
  • EUROPE - CENTRAL ASIA
  • United Kingdom
  • Arbitrary detention and proceedings
  • News
  • Human rights
  • Press freedom
  • Freedom of opinion and expression
  • Arbitrary detention
  • Imprisonment
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