Sept. 23 (UPI) — Human rights activist Alaa Abdel Fattah was reunited with his family late Monday, after more than five years’ imprisonment, according to his family and supporting organizations.

Fattah, who holds both British and Egyptian citizenship, has spent a collective of more than 10 years behind Egyptian bars and was widely considered the Middle Eastern country’s most prominent political prisoner.

Fattah, along with five others, received pardons from President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Monday, according to state media.

Mona Seif, one of Fattah’s two sisters, took to X to broadcast updates on the situation, starting with hearing the news, then preparing to leave work and finally posting pictures of her brother embracing family members.

“An exceptionally kind day,” she said. “Alaa is free.”

Reporters Without Borders, which has campaigned for his release, said in a statement that Fattah was reunited with his mother, Laila Soueif, and other sister Sanaa Seif late Monday.

“We are deeply relieved to see Alaa Abdel Fattah finally walk free,” Fiona O’Brien, RSF UK director, said in a statement.

“What he and his family have been through is unimaginable: he should never have gone to prison, and his family should never have had to mount a years-long international campaign to free him. His pardon and release must mark a definitive end to their ordeal and, after so many lost years, he must be allowed to travel to the United Kingdom to be reunited with his son Khaled.”

Fattah, who rose to international recognition during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, has been repeatedly arrested in Egypt over the years.

In 2013, three months after el-Sisi’s coup, he was arrested, charged with the organization of a protest and then sentenced to five years behind bars.

He was released in 2019, but was then arrested shortly afterward.

He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 on the charges of “spreading false news,” according to the U.S. State Department. Reporters Without Borders said he was charged with an arbitrary offense of spreading false news for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egyptian prisons.

The Free Alaa website states his sentence was to have ended last September of last year but he was still detained by the authorities.

His detainment was deemed arbitrary and in breach of International law by the the United Nations Working Group.

“Alaa Abdel Fattah is a prisoner of conscience who was targeted for his peaceful activism,” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, said in a statement.

“His pardon will not erase the ordeal he has endured in detention over the past six years. The Egyptian authorities should follow up on today’s decision by releasing all those solely detained for exercising their human rights and allowing them to reunite with their loved ones.”