EGYPTIAN authorities announced the presidential pardon today of prominent activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has been in prison for most of the past 12 years.

A statement from the president’s office said that another five prisoners had also been pardoned. It was not immediately clear when they would be released.

The activist’s lawyer Khaled Ali told reporters today that Mr Abd el-Fattah was expected to be freed from Wadi Natron prison, just north of Cairo, immediately after the state’s decision is published in the official gazette, which he believes is likely within the next two days.

Laila Soueif, Mr Abdel-Fattah’s mother, said she was going to the prison where her son is held. “I won’t rest until he is out,” she insisted.

Mr Abd el-Fattah was a leading voice in the country’s 2011 uprising and has gone on multiple hunger strikes behind bars. His ordeal became emblematic of the fraying of Egypt’s democracy.

He took part in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic president Hosni Mubarak and was later active in protests against human rights abuses as well as military trials of civilians.

The activist was first sent to prison in 2014 for participating in an “unauthorised” protest and allegedly assaulting a police officer, before being released in early 2019.

He was arrested again in September 2019 during a security crackdown that followed rare anti-government protests in Egypt. After more than two years in pre-trial detention, an emergency security court sentenced him to five years for spreading false news.

When his release date came up in September 2024, authorities refused to count the more than two years he had spent in pre-trial detention and ordered him held until January 3 2027.

“My heart will explode,” his sister Mona Seif posted on Facebook, expressing her relief at the news of his pardon.