Egypt releases prominent blogger Wael Abbas after 7-month detention

Egyptian authorities have released a prominent activist and critic of the government after more than seven months of detention, his lawyer has announced.

Gamal Eid announced on Wednesday that Wael Abbas had been released more than a week after a court ordered his conditional release.

"Finally Wael Abbas has been released after seven months of unfair pre-trial detention and ten days of illegal detention," Eid tweeted, complaining of "government thuggery". 

Eid said on late on Tuesday that authorities were keeping Eid in detention despite the court order to release him.

Abbas, 44, faces charges of "disseminating false news" and "joining an outlawed group", which are vaguely defined accusations the government is accused of using to silence critics.

Police arrested him in May after raiding his house in a Cairo suburb.

His arrest came amid a crackdown on dissent after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won re-election in March.

Abbas has campaigned against torture in Egypt for well over a decade, before and after the 2011 uprising.

He was also a key figure in documenting the 2011 uprising against former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Sisi led the military's 2013 ouster of a democratically elected but divisive president. He has overseen the largest crackdown on critics seen in Egypt in living memory, jailing thousands of pro-democracy activists, reversing freedoms won in the 2011 uprising, silencing critics and placing draconian rules on rights groups.

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