Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned the prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been imprisoned for six years, state media and his family say.

Abdel Fattah was one of six people whose sentences were commuted following a request from the National Council for Human Rights, according to Al-Qahera News. His sister Mona Seif wrote on X: "My heart will explode."

The 43-year-old blogger and pro-democracy activist is one of Egypt's best-known political prisoners.

He was arrested in 2019 during a crackdown on dissent and sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 after being convicted of "spreading false news" for sharing a post about a prisoner dying after torture.