The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 58 human rights organizations in a joint statement on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, calling for the release of Egyptian-British blogger and writer Alaa Abdelfattah on Sunday, September 29, at the conclusion of his five-year prison sentence, in accordance with Egyptian law.
The statement also urged Egypt’s international partners to raise Abdelfattah’s case with their counterparts and press for his immediate release.
Alaa Abd el-Fattah was arrested in September 2019 amid a government crackdown on protests demanding that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi resign. Abdelfattah had posted about the protests and arrests on Facebook. In December 2021, he was sentenced to five years in prison on anti-state and false news charges.
On Tuesday, CPJ separately called on the Egyptian government to release Alaa, drop all remaining charges against him, and stop manipulating legal statutes to unjustly imprison him.