By Ebi Kesiena
As Egypt prepares to conduct its Presidential elections next year, Prominent Egyptian activist Ahmed Douma walked out of the Badr prison complex outside Cairo, a free man.
He was pardoned along with four other prisoners, according to a presidential decree.
The pardons, dated Saturday, was published in Egypt’s Official Gazette.
Douma was serving a 15-year sentence after being convicted of taking part in clashes between protesters and security forces in the Egyptian capital in December 2011.
The nearly weeklong clashes that left some 40 people dead erupted after mostly young activists took to the streets to protest the post-Mubarak political transition overseen by the military.
The riot involved a fire that gutted parts of a library housing rare manuscripts and books. Other government buildings, including the parliament, were damaged during the protests.
The clashes brought international attention when riot police were filmed beating, stripping and kicking female demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the 2011 uprising.
Activists received the news of Douma’s freedom with jubilation on social media, and called for the release of other jailed pro-democracy activists.
Reacting to his release, Mona Seif, the sister of jailed activist Alaa Abdel-Fatthah, wrote on Facebook. “Douma has not set foot out of prison since 2013 … my heart will burst,”
Douma, 37, was first sentenced in 2015 to life in prison along with 229 other defendants who were all tried in absentia.
Douma appealed and Egypt’s highest appeals court ordered his retrial, ultimately leading to the 15-year sentence and a fine of 6 million Egyptian pounds, about $195,000.
He was one of the faces of the 2011 pro-democracy protests that swept the Arab world’s most populous country and ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
He was also a fierce critic of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who was overthrown in 2013 amid mass protests against his one-year divisive rule.
For years, many politicians and public figures called on President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi to pardon Douma, as part of mounting calls to end a yearslong crackdown on dissent.
Egyptian authorities have in recent months released hundreds of activists after its human rights record came under international scrutiny when it hosted the U.N. climate change summit in November.
Egypt, a close U.S. ally, has waged a wide-scale crackdown on dissent over the past decade, jailing thousands of people.
