top of page
About Alaa

 

The Egyptian youths that once mesmerized the whole world during the Arab Spring by rising up against the decades of brutal dictatorship are now behind bars (in prison). What an irony!

 

One of them is Mr. Alaa Abdel Fattah, known as the icon of the revolution. A blogger and software engineer, he was a leading secular figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak. 

 

In fact, Abdel Fattah has the unlucky distinction of having been arrested under each of the four iterations of power in Egypt following the overthrow of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.They have all seen him, with his energetic online following, as an instigator of social unrest. Alaa Abdel Fattah is currently in Al-Mazraa prison in the Tora prison complex in Cairo serving a five-year sentence after being convicted of flouting Egypt’s repressive protest law by participating in a peaceful protest in 2013 to oppose military trials for civilians.

 

In addition to his current five-year sentence, in December Alaa will again face trial and possibly another five years in prison; because of a tweet in which he criticized the judiciary as “biased” and implied that judges are “taking orders from the military”. The tweet was in relation to a controversial 2013 trial in which 43 NGO workers were sentenced to between one and five years in prison.

 

There are now two world-wide campaigns led by his family to call upon people around the world to stand with Alaa and all those unjustly detained in Egypt’s prisons: "25 days for Alaa" and  #FreeAlaa campaign. His family and colleagues around the world are asking us to join their campaigns and make our voices heard to help  #FreeAlaa.

 

Please join the campaign! Sign a petition, send a letter to your government representatives, take a photo with the poster and show solidarity by posting on Social Media, under the hashtag #FreeAlla.

bottom of page