CAIRO -- Worn out but smiling, a prominent Egyptian activist facing retrial on a 15-year prison sentence for violating a protest law walked out of a Cairo prison Monday after a court ordered him freed on bond.
The release of Alaa Abdel-Fattah, who has emerged as a powerful voice for civil rights in Egypt, provided a small victory for the country's young activists who played a leading role in the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak only to later become targets of successive governments. Abdel-Fattah was freed after dozens of activists began a hunger strike last month to protest limits on public demonstrations and the detention of activists.
A lawyer representing Abdel-Fattah, a vocal government critic who has been repeatedly jailed, said he was released on $714 bond along with two other activists.
Later in the day, Abdel-Fattah, dressed in white clothes, walked out of Tora prison on Cairo's southern outskirts as his family and friends waiting outside cheered.
"I have been on hunger strike for some 40 days. I am exhausted," he told the crowd before leaving with his family.
Attorney Mohammed Abdel-Aziz said the judge presiding over the retrial withdrew from the case at the request of defense lawyers. "The judge said in his reasons for stepping down that it was prompted by a show of disrespect to the court," Abdel-Aziz said. The retrial will begin once a new judge is assigned to the case.
Last week, during the latest court session, Egyptian prosecutors presented a home video of Abdel-Fattah's wife dancing as evidence against the activist, prompting an outcry from his lawyers that the material was irrelevant and defamatory.
The judge allowed the video to be shown at the time, but on Monday he ordered the country's top prosecutor to investigate the use of the video, according to a judicial official. The judge called the video irrelevant to the case and said playing it in public violated the constitutional right to privacy, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The rest of the evidence presented during the session consisted of video clips from private TV stations showing protests and police chasing unidentified civilians. No scenes or footage of Abdel-Fattah or any other defendant in the case were shown.
The surprise release came after activist groups circulated a letter written by Abdel-Fattah in which he asks to be released and demands the judge step down, saying he does not believe he would be given a fair trial.
"I have lost all confidence," Abdel-Fattah wrote. "I am fearful over my freedom, my future, and my family. Fearful of injustice.
"I ask you [the judge] to step aside and to give me a chance to stand before a different court, in which I would be reassured, and to start the court proceedings again without fear or enmity."
Abdel-Fattah comes from one of Egypt's most prominent activist families, and his sister Sanaa is also in jail for violating the protest law. His father, Ahmed Seif, who died in late August, was a longtime human-rights activist who was repeatedly jailed while Mubarak was in power.
Abdel-Fattah's sentence was the harshest given to a secular activist amid an ongoing government crackdown that has mainly targeted Islamist supporters of President Mohammed Morsi, who was overthrown by the military in July 2013 amid protests demanding his resignation.
The government's subsequent crackdown on Morsi supporters has left hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned. Morsi and many senior members of his Muslim Brotherhood movement have been jailed since last summer.
Last autumn, the government passed a law criminalizing any unauthorized protest, and police have arrested both Islamist and non-Islamist activists who violate it.
Abdel-Fattah was granted a retrial last month on charges of organizing an unauthorized protest and beating a police officer in November.
Last month, dozens of non-Islamist activists and journalists started a hunger strike to protest the prolonged detention of activists, under a campaign called "We have had enough." On Monday, about 100 protesters took to the steps of the Press Syndicate in downtown Cairo to protest the law.
"We don't know what to do for those imprisoned ... this is the last thing we can do," said 27-year-old Doaa Bassouni, who said she had started a 48-hour hunger strike in support of the detainees.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah El Deeb of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/16/2014