Egyptian rights researcher Patrick Zaki and lawyer Mohamed el-Baqer were freed on Thursday, a day after being pardoned by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in cases that renewed attention to Egypt's human rights record.
Zaki had served 22 months in pre-trial detention before being sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday for spreading false news over an article he wrote on the plight of Egypt's Christians, andZaki said in an interview with Reuters that he planned to travel on Saturday to Bologna in Italy, where he had been studying before he was arrested during a trip home in 2020.
Zaki said he hoped the pardon from Sisi could lead to the freeing of other detainees and the repeal of travel bans imposed on activists, among them several current and former colleagues of his at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights , an independent research group. Since late 2021 Egypt has taken a number of steps which it says are aimed at addressing human rights, including amnesties for some prominent prisoners, but critics have dismissed the moves as superficial and say arrests have continued.
Abd el-Fattah, along with many other detainees swept up in a decade-long crackdown on dissent, remains in prison.
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