Cairo - "Al Quds" dot com - (AFP) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has pardoned a journalist who was imprisoned for "spreading false news" and more than 3,000 prisoners, local media and officials reported Wednesday.

Prominent left-wing activist Hossam Moanes was sentenced to four years in prison in November for a charge usually leveled against dissidents in Egypt.

Local media reported the issuance of the amnesty decision for Moanes on Wednesday, while a tweet launched by lawyer Tariq Al-Awadi, a member of the Presidential Pardon Committee, stated, "Congratulations for pardoning Hossam Moanes."

Later, the Ministry of Interior announced in a statement that 3,273 prisoners convicted of criminal cases had received a presidential pardon.

Moanes was arrested in 2019, along with a number of opponents, while preparing to run in the 2020 legislative elections within the "Coalition of Hope."

An emergency court sentenced Mo'nis, along with five others, including former MP Ziyad Al-Alimi, a prominent figure in the 2011 revolution who is still in prison, to prison terms ranging from three to five years.

Amnesty International had condemned the judicial rulings, denouncing "a series of human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, torture and intimidation."

"These politicians and activists should not have been arrested in the first place, and yet they were convicted and sentenced to prison on charges related to their legitimate criticism of the Egyptian authorities," she added.

The amnesty of Moanes came a few days after an order to release 41 persons held in pretrial detention, including Hassan Muhammad Barbari, an activist in the "Coalition of Hope".

Since Sisi assumed the presidency in 2013, human rights organizations have denounced Egypt's "catastrophic" human rights record.

In September, Sisi presented the National Strategy for Human Rights, emphasizing that education, health, and electricity are more important rights than the right to assembly, which is almost completely banned in the country.

Egypt will host the COP27 Climate Conference in November.

International human rights organizations criticized Egypt's decision to host the climate summit on the grounds of human rights violations.

In November, Human Rights Watch said Egypt was hosting the event "in order to whitewash its appalling record of human rights violations."