Prominent photo-journalist released by Egypt after 5 years

The family and lawyer of a prominent Egyptian photo-journalist say he has been released after five years in prison.

Mahmoud Abu Zaid, a photo-journalist known as "Shawkan", was convicted for involvement in a 2013 sit-in protest by Islamists that was broken up by security forces in an operation that left hundreds dead.

His lawyer, Taher Abuel-Naser, says he was released from a police station in the Giza neighborhood in Cairo on Monday morning. His family confirmed his release.

Egypt under general-turned-president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has launched an unprecedented assault on journalists in recent years, imprisoning dozens and occasionally expelling some foreign journalists.

Shawkan, whose case had been highlighted by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO and human rights groups, was released because he had already served out his term before being sentenced. But he must still spend his nights for the next five years at a police station, a penalty he said he would challenge.

Shawkan vowed to continue with his work, saying: “All journalists are at risk of being arrested or killed while doing their work. I am not the first and I will not be the last.”

An Australian journalist, Peter Greste, was arrested with two other journalists, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed, in December 2013 when working for Al Jazeera English. Greste was sentenced to seven years' jail but was released in 2015 after an international campaign that portrayed them as political prisoners. The others were not immediately released.

The violent breakup of the sit-in was a key moment in the turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising, as the military led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi moved to assert its control after forcing out Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected head of state.

Sisi was elected president the following year and has overseen a sweeping crackdown on dissent in which thousands of Islamist opponents, as well as scores of liberal activists and journalists, have been imprisoned. Sisi and his supporters say they needed to stabilize the country following the upheaval triggered by the 2011 uprising.

The government says many protesters at the 2013 sit-in were armed and that eight members of the security forces were among those killed.