Egypt's Sisi pardons jailed leading activist Ahmed Douma

Egyptian political activist Ahmed Douma reacts as he stands behind dock bars during his trial in Cairo on June 3, 2013. (Photo/AFP)

Egyptian activist Ahmed Douma, a leading figure of the country's 2011 uprising who has spent the last decade behind bars, has been granted a presidential pardon, lawyers said.

"President Abdel Fattah al Sisi... has used his constitutional powers" to pardon several prisoners including Douma, lawyer Tarek Elawady, a member of the presidential pardons committee, said on Saturday.

Prominent rights lawyer Khaled Ali meanwhile said on social media he was waiting outside Badr prison on Cairo's outskirts for the activist's release.

A court in 2019 had sentenced Douma to 15 years in prison on charges of clashing with security forces in the capital two years earlier, reducing a previous 25-year sentence handed down in 2015.

Egypt's top appeals court later in 2019 upheld the 15-year sentence, which also included a fine of what would have been $372,000 at the time (six million Egyptian pounds).

Douma, now 37, was a leading activist in the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

He was arrested in a crackdown following the 2013 military ouster of Mubarak's successor, Mohamed Morsi.

Upcoming election

Sisi, a former army chief who spearheaded Morsi's ouster, has been accused of leading a relentless crackdown on the country's opposition.

Key activists from the revolution remain behind bars, including British-Egyptian pro-democracy blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has spent the better part of the past decade behind bars.

The president has pardoned numerous prominent figures over the past year, but critics have charged that more people have been arrested in the meantime.

Since April last year, authorities have released 1,000 political prisoners amid much fanfare, but detained almost 3,000 more, according to Egyptian rights monitors.

Sisi in July pardoned researcher Patrick Zaki a day after he received a three-year sentence, as well as rights lawyer Mohamed al Baqer who was arrested in 2019 while attending an interrogation of Abdel Fattah, his client at the time.

The pardons come as Egypt conducts a so-called "national dialogue" meant to bring in an opposition that has been decimated throughout a decade of repression since Sisi came to power.

The president announced on Wednesday he had received the first recommendations of this "dialogue", saying he had "passed them on to the competent authorities so that they can be applied within the framework granted by the legal and constitutional provisions".

The pardon also comes months ahead of Egypt's presidential election scheduled for 2024.

Though no candidates have formally been announced, the incumbent is widely expected to sit in the upcoming polls.

Source: TRT