The President of the Emirates pardons Egyptian activist Abdul Rahman Al-Qaradawi

On Friday, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan pardoned Abd al-Rahman al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian opposition activist and son of the late preacher close to the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

According to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal/Cybercrimes Department had ruled on August 27, 2026, convicting him of the crimes charged against him, punishing him with ten years in prison, and fining him two hundred thousand dirhams.

In January 2025, the UAE extradited Al-Qaradawi from Lebanon based on an arrest request issued against him by the General Secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers.

The UAE pursued Al-Qaradawi “for committing acts that would provoke and disturb public security,” according to a statement by the news agency.

Who is Abdul Rahman Al-Qaradawi?

He is an Egyptian poet and journalist. He began his literary career through many collections and poems that were distinguished by their boldness and direct discussion of political and social issues.

Al-Qaradawi holds Egyptian and Turkish citizenship. Al-Qaradawi was a prominent political activist, and he played a major role in the political movements that opposed the regime of the late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak since 2003. He wrote many poems against him, which became widely circulated and inspired slogans for the movement on January 25, 2011.

He was a founding member of Egyptian opposition movements at the time, such as “Kifaya” and the “National Association for Change.” He also served as the general coordinator of the popular campaign to support Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei to run for the presidency of Egypt before the January 25 revolution.

Al-Qaradawi Jr. left Egypt after the army intervened to overthrow the president of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi, following widespread protests against his rule. He was sentenced in absentia to three years in prison in 2016 on charges of promoting false news, in addition to a previous three-year prison sentence also in 2014 on charges of insulting the Egyptian judiciary, which was upheld and the appeal against him was rejected in 2018.

Al-Qaradawi was arrested in Lebanon on December 28, 2024, immediately after his arrival from Syria through the Masnaa border crossing, based on an Egyptian arrest warrant, according to a Lebanese judicial source.

Lebanon's decision to deport Al-Qaradawi to the UAE sparked human rights criticism. Human Rights Watch had accused Lebanon of violating "Lebanese domestic laws and Lebanon's international obligations."

Al-Qaradawi was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison in Egypt on charges of incitement to terrorism and attempting to overthrow the government, while Egypt and the UAE demanded his extradition in early January.

The UAE justified its request to prosecute Al-Qaradawi against the backdrop of a video he published during his visit to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, and Abu Dhabi considered it “incitement against the UAE and destabilization.”

Abd al-Rahman al-Qaradawi, known for his opposition to the Hosni Mubarak regime and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, appeared in the video celebrating the fall of Bashar al-Assad and calling for “victory” in the Arab countries that witnessed uprisings.