Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam Abd El-Fattah (, ), known professionally as Alaa Abd El-Fattah (; born 1981), is an Egyptian-British software developer, blogger, political activist and former political prisoner who was imprisoned by the Egyptian government for 12 years.
After a 2006 arrest by Egyptian police, Abd El-Fattah was released without charge 45 days later. He was imprisoned in Egypt for organising a political protest without requesting authorisation, and released on bail in March 2014. In September 2014, he was rearrested and ordered released on bail again, receiving a five-year sentence in February 2015, from which he was released in late March 2019. In September 2019, during the 2019 Egyptian protests, Abd El-Fattah was re-arrested by the National Security Agency and taken to State Security Prosecution on unknown charges. He was convicted of "spreading fake news" and jailed for five years. In April 2022, he began a hunger strike. His family claims that his sentence should have ended in September 2024. The Egyptian authorities refused to free him, as the release date had been appointed in January 2027, based on the court's decision not to include his served pretrial detention.
In September 2024, Abd El-Fattah's mother, Laila Soueif, began a hunger strike outside the British Foreign Office in London, remaining on strike , when she was joined by Australian journalist Peter Greste. In October 2024, Abd El-Fattah was named by Arundhati Roy, winner of the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize awarded by English PEN, as the "Writer of Courage" with whom she chose to share the prize. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer actively campaigned and lobbied for Abd El-Fattah's release and considered the case a "top priority" for his government.British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah freed from prison The Guardian, 23 Sep 2025.Keir Starmer says Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah back in UK Al Jazeera, 26 Dec 2025.
On 22 September 2025, Abd El-Fattah was released from prison, after having spent most of the previous 12 years incarcerated. He was pardoned along with five other prisoners by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. On 26 December, following the lifting of a travel ban, Abd El-Fattah moved to Britain, where he became the subject of controversy over his past social media posts, in which he called for the killing of members of the police, amongst others, and described himself as "racist".
Early life and education Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam Abd El-Fattah was born in 1981 and raised in a family of well-known Egyptian activists. His father, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, a human rights attorney who had been arrested in 1983 by State Security Investigations Service officers and tortured and imprisoned for five years, is one of the founders of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center. Amnesty International. 9 December 2008 His mother Laila Soueif, the sister of the novelist and political commentator Ahdaf Soueif, is a professor of mathematics at Cairo University and a political activist. His parents' activism began in the Anwar Sadat era.
During a demonstration in 2005, his mother and other women were attacked by Mubarak supporters; Abd El-Fattah protected her. One of his sisters is Mona Seif, a founding member of "No Military Trials for Civilians", a group raising awareness for the civilian detainees summoned by military prosecutors and investigating torture allegations involving military police. His other sister, Sanaa Seif, is an activist and film editor who co-founded a newspaper about the Arab spring called Gornal. He obtained British citizenship through his mother, Laila Soueif, in 2021.
Software development and blogging Abd El-Fattah has been active in developing Arabic-language versions of software and platforms.
Abd El-Fattah co-founded with his wife Manal Bahey El-Din Hassan (daughter of activist Bahi El-Din Hassan), the Egyptian blog aggregator Manalaa and Omraneya, which are the first Arabic-language blog aggregators that did not restrict inclusion based on the content of the blog. In 2005, the Manalaa blog won the Special Reporters Without Borders Award in Deutsche Welle's Best of Blogs competition.
Political activism and arrests Abd El-Fattah has been questioned, arrested, and detained on several occasions. He was arrested on 7 May 2006 when demonstrating for an independent judiciary, and was released on 20 June 2006. On 30 October 2011, he was arrested for inciting violence against the Egyptian National Police at the Maspero, and was released on 25 December 2011. On 26 March 2013, he was arrested for inciting aggression during a protest outside the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters, known as the Mokattam Clashes of March 2013 but was later acquitted on all charges.
Two days later, on 28 March 2013, he was arrested and charged for torching former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik's campaign headquarters on 28 May 2012, and received a suspended one-year jail term. On 28 November 2013, he was arrested for rallying, inciting violence, resisting authorities and violating the Anti-protest Law after a demonstration against military trials for civilians outside Shura Council building on 26 November 2013.
He was initially released on 23 March 2014, after 115 days in detention. In June 2014, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison and detained again awaiting his retrial, during which time he went on a hunger strike. He was rearrested on 15 September 2014, and released on bail.
In October 2021, a collection of his writings – some smuggled out from his prison cell – translated into English by anonymous supporters, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions under the title You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, with a foreword by Naomi Klein. Drawing on a decade of Abd El-Fattah's essays, newspaper columns, letters, article-length Facebook posts and tweets, the book "offers a kaleidoscopic view of his thoughts and interests ... all part of his effort to envision what a sustainable and equitable society, built on the strong foundations of a shared democratic culture, might look like."
Among positive reviews, that in Jacobin magazine noted: "These essays are necessary reading for anyone who wishes to understand the last decade of Egyptian politics." The Nation commented: "Alaa's writings suggest that some of the most radical ideas of our times are produced outside universities and that some of the most significant thinkers of our age are not academics."
In July 2022, an Arabic translation of Abd El-Fattah's book was published by Jusur, a Lebanese publishing house based in Beirut, under the title Shabah' Al-Rabea'.
During his two-month detention in 2011, his son Khaled was born, and during his three-month detention in 2014, his father Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad died.
2006 arrest
On 7 May 2006, Abd El-Fattah was arrested during a peaceful protest after he called for an independent judiciary. His arrest, along with that of several other bloggers and activists, spurred solidarity protests by others around the world. Abd El-Fattah was released on 20 June 2006, after spending 45 days in prison. His wife Manal was quoted by the London Independent newspaper as saying: "There's no going back now, we'll definitely be continuing our activities."
2011 Egyptian revolution and arrest
According to Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram Weekly, Abd el-Fattah's name "is in many ways synonymous with Egypt's 25 January Revolution". Abd El-Fattah participated in nearly every demonstration after the revolution began. He was not in Egypt on 25 January 2011, when the anti-regime protests began and when the Egyptian government shut down the internet in the country. However, he was able to collect information from family and friends by land-line phones and published to the outside world the events occurring in Egypt during the first days of the revolution.
A few days later, he returned to Egypt and was in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests, on 2 February. While demonstrating there, he participated in defending the square from attacks by security forces and pro-regime assailants, an event known in Egypt as the "camel battle".
Abd El-Fattah continued his participation in the Egyptian revolution, until Mubarak stepped down from the presidency. Abd El-Fattah thereafter settled in Egypt, where he maintained his participation in the demonstrations against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) way of running the country after Mubarak's fall.
On 30 October, Abd El-Fattah was arrested on charges of inciting violence against the military during the 9 October Maspero demonstrations, during which hundreds of people were injured and 27 died in the worst violence since Mubarak left office. Abd El-Fattah refused to recognise the legitimacy of his interrogators or answer their questions and was then to be held for 15 days, a period that indefinitely renewable. He was accused of having incited fighting in Maspero, of assaulting soldiers and damaging military property.
As in his 2006 imprisonment, his mother spoke out in his support, and initiated a hunger strike in opposition to the court-martialling of civilians on 6 November. His father and sisters also participated in the 2011 protests. At his first hearing, Abd El-Fattah's father, the human rights attorney Ahmed Seif El-Islam, presented the military court with video tapes, one of which contained footage of armored personnel carriers running over protesters and another of state television anchors "inciting violence". He also accused the head of military police of being directly responsible for the violence and accused the Supreme Council of Armed Forces of obstruction of justice for instituting a curfew the night of the attack in order to "hide all the evidence of the army's crimes".
The spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for the release of Abd El-Fattah and all others imprisoned for exercising free speech, while Amnesty International issued a condemnation of his imprisonment and accusing SCAF of involvement in the Maspero clashes. In reaction to his imprisonment, thousands of protesters took part in demonstrations in Cairo and Alexandria, demanding Abd El-Fattah's release. Human rights activists and bloggers outside of Egypt have also called for his release. While incarcerated in the Bab al-Khalq Prison, he wrote a letter to fellow Egyptian activists, claiming that SCAF had "hijacked" the revolution. He also compared his current imprisonment with the prison time he served in 2006, saying: "I never expected to repeat the experience of five years ago. After a revolution that deposed the tyrant, I go back to his jails?"
Following protests against Abd El-Fattah's incarceration, military authorities allowed his case to be handled by a civilian court instead of military tribunal. On 13 December, the court dropped two charges against him, including incitement and illegal assembly. The court extended his detention for another 15 days and maintained the charges of stealing weapons and shooting at soldiers. While Abd El-Fattah remained in custody, his son Khaled was born, named after Khaled Said, the slain blogger who had become a symbol of the Egyptian revolution.
On 25 December 2011, a judge representing the public prosecutor's office ordered the release of Abd El-Fattah to take place the following day. He remained under a travel ban.
2013 arrest In November 2013, Abd El-Fattah was arrested again for allegedly encouraging a demonstration against the new constitution outside the Egyptian Parliament, violating the new protest law. Around 20 policemen raided Abd El-Fattah's home, broke the door down, and proceeded to confiscate the family's computers and mobile phones. When Abd El-Fattah asked to see the arrest warrant, the police physically assaulted him and his wife.