Alaa Ahmed Seif al Islam Abd El-Fattah (Arabic: علاء أحمد سيف الإسلام عبد الفتاح, IPA: [ʕæˈlæːʔ ˈæħmæd ˈseːf ʕæbdelfatˈtæːħ]), known professionally as Alaa Abd El-Fattah (Arabic: علاء عبد الفتاح), is an Egyptian-British blogger, software developer, and political activist.

His sentence should have ended on 29 September 2024 but the Egyptian authorities refused to free him, pushing the release date to 2027, based on the decision not to include his served pretrial detention.

His father, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, a human rights attorney who had been arrested in 1983 by State Security Investigations Service officers and tortured and imprisoned for five years, is one of the founders of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.

[18] Two days later, on 28 March 2013, he was arrested and charged for torching former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik's campaign headquarters on 28 May 2012,[19] and received a suspended one-year jail term.

His arrest, along with that of several other bloggers and activists, spurred solidarity protests by others around the world,[32][33] some of whom created the blog "Free Alaa" devoted to calling for his release from jail.

However, he was able to collect information from family and friends by land-line phones and published to the outside world the events occurring in Egypt during the first days of the revolution.

He thereafter settled in Egypt, where he maintained his participation in the demonstrations against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) way of running the country after Mubarak's fall.

[6] At his first hearing, Abd El-Fattah's father, the human rights attorney Ahmed Seif El-Islam presented the military court with video tapes, one of which contained footage of Armored Personnel Carriers running over protesters and another of state television anchors "inciting violence."

[37] While incarcerated in the Bab al-Khalq Prison, he wrote a letter to fellow Egyptian activists, claiming that SCAF had "hijacked" the revolution.

[48] Around 20 policemen raided Abd El-Fattah's home, broke the door down, and proceeded to confiscate the family's computers and mobile phones.

In early September 2014, his mother Laila Soueif and sister Mona Seif embarked on a hunger strike in protest against the imprisonment of the siblings.

[51][52] He was released on 29 March 2019,[53] but remained subject to a five-year parole period, requiring him to stay at a police station for 12 hours daily, from evening until morning.

[61] On 2 April 2022, he began a hunger strike in protest at being kept in solitary confinement, and refused access to books, and the opportunity to exercise; demanding to be allowed a visit by United Kingdom Consular staff.

[66] On 14 June 2022, at least 25 celebrities and political thinkers from across the world urged the British foreign secretary Liz Truss to help secure the release of Abd el-Fattah.

Mark Ruffalo, Judi Dench, Stephen Fry, and Carey Mulligan were among the celebrities who penned the letter calling on the United Kingdom to condemn his prolonged detention in Egypt.

His sister, Sanaa Seif, also urged Truss to publicly demand that the activist be released, as he was convinced that he would not leave the Egyptian prison alive.

[67] On 6 November 2022, as Egypt hosted world leaders for the COP27 summit, Abdel Fattah stopped drinking water, after more than six months of a hunger strike.

[68] His sister Sanaa Seif raised concerns that he might die within days, and hoped that PM Rishi Sunak would secure Abdel Fattah's release during his visit to Egypt for COP27.

[71] On 10 November, prison officials told Abdel Fattah's family that he had received "medical intervention with the knowledge of a judicial authority," indicative of either force-feeding or intravenous rehydration.

[76] On 14 November 2023, Abd El-Fattah's family instructed an international counsel team led by Can Yeğinsu to file an urgent appeal with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

[80] On 30 September 2024[81] his mother Laila Soueif began a daily hunger strike outside the UK government's Foreign Office in Westminster, chalking on the pavement the number of days of her son's illegal imprisonment.

[85] In 2022, Australian journalist Peter Greste, who had been imprisoned with Abd El-Fattah for several months in 2014, described him as "easily the best-known political prisoner in Egypt today".

[87][88] Lina Attalah, editor-in-chief of independent online Egyptian newspaper Mada Masr, accepted the award on Abd El-Fattah's behalf.