Cairo - (AFP) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued, on Wednesday, a presidential pardon for the prominent Egyptian dissident, Yahya Hussein Al-Hadi, who has been imprisoned for more than three years. A week ago, he was sentenced to four years on charges of spreading false news.

The decision came after the Public Prosecution released, during the last forty-eight hours, 11 political activists, according to the Presidential Pardon Committee, who were in pretrial detention pending cases related to charges of spreading false news and disturbing public peace.

On Twitter, lawyer Tariq Al-Awadi, a member of the Presidential Pardon Committee, which was formed in April to discuss the files of detainees who could be released with an amnesty and includes public figures, announced that "a republican decision was issued to pardon Engineer Yahya Hussein Al-Hadi." Al-Awadi published a picture of Abdul Hadi the moment he was released from prison.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Official Gazette published the amnesty decision for Abd al-Hadi, 67, who was sentenced to 4 years in prison by a misdemeanor court on charges of publishing false news on May 22.

The prominent dissident publicly criticized President Sisi's policies before his arrest, and was previously opposed to the late Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. He was also one of the founders of the "Enough" movement that paved the way during the last five years of Hosni Mubarak's era for the revolution that led to his overthrow in 2011.

His pardon comes in the context of an attempt to ease political tension in light of the major economic crisis that Egypt is going through as a result of the repercussions of the Corona virus, and then the Russian war on Ukraine.

Al-Awadi confirmed in another tweet, after announcing the release of Hussein, that "a number of those held in pretrial detention will be released at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, Thursday."

On April 28, Sisi released, with a presidential pardon, journalist Hossam Moanes, after an exceptional court sentenced him to 4 years in prison last year for publishing false news.

In a statement, Amnesty International said this week, "The fate of thousands of men and women arbitrarily detained should not be in the hands of the Egyptian security services, specifically the National Security Sector and the General Intelligence."

Amna Guellali, Deputy Director of the Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said that she "welcomes" the release of 11 people who had been imprisoned for "political reasons" since 2018.
But she stressed that "previous promises to release prisoners held for political reasons were nothing more than disingenuous attempts to deflect international criticism of Egypt's appalling human rights record."
"To demonstrate the Egyptian authorities' commitment to these promises, they must now immediately and unconditionally release anyone detained solely for exercising their human rights, including politicians, journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders."
She noted that the trials of politicians "continue unabated."
Earlier this week, an Egyptian court sentenced Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the former Islamist candidate for the presidency in Egypt and a leader in the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ezzat, to 15 years in prison on charges of spreading false news, a judicial official announced.
The court also issued life sentences to 14 other defendants in the case in which leaders and members of the group were accused in 2018 of "spreading false news and inciting against state institutions."
Human rights organizations estimate the number of political prisoners in Sirr at about sixty thousand, but Al-Sisi constantly denies this.