{"id":44654,"date":"2026-09-04T18:54:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=44654"},"modified":"2026-09-04T18:54:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:54:05","slug":"uae-pardons-egyptian-turkish-poet-facing-10-years-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/uae-pardons-egyptian-turkish-poet-facing-10-years-in-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE pardons Egyptian-Turkish poet facing 10 years in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"auto\">Egyptian-Turkish poet Abdulrahman Youssef al-Qaradawi was pardoned by United Arab \u200bEmirates (UAE) \u00a0President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed \u200cAl Nahyan this Friday, state news agency WAM said, a week after receiving \u200ba 10-year jail sentence following his \u200bextradition from Lebanon.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Qaradawi, the son of \u2060late senior Muslim cleric Youssef \u200bal-Qaradawi, was arrested in Lebanon in December \u200b2024 after making critical comments about the UAE, Saudi Arabian and Egyptian authorities in a \u200bvideo posted online.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">He was extradited \u200bin January 2025, facing charges of &#8220;engaging in activities \u200cthat \u2060aim to stir and undermine public security&#8221;, WAM said at the time.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">Rights groups and United Nations experts had called for \u200bQaradawi&#8217;s release, \u200bsaying \u2060he had been arrested after exercising his right to free \u200bexpression.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\">His father, who died in \u200b2022, \u2060was a spiritual guide to the Muslim Brotherhood, championed the 2011 Arab \u2060Spring \u200buprisings, and drew the \u200bire of rulers in Egypt and the Gulf \u200bwith his Islamist preaching.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"auto\"><\/div>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14617,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-44654","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Qaradawi, the son of \u2060late senior Muslim cleric Youssef \u200bal-Qaradawi, was arrested in Lebanon in December \u200b2024.","published_date":"","news_description":"Qaradawi, the son of \u2060late senior Muslim cleric Youssef \u200bal-Qaradawi, was arrested in Lebanon in December \u200b2024.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44655,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/44654\/revisions\/44655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=44654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}