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Pardoned prisoners remain behind bars in Egypt

October 15, 2015 at 2:41 pm

At least five people, pardoned in late September by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, are still being held in jail three weeks later, Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed said. Many more not covered by the pardons, remain unlawfully detained with little chance of release.

On 23 September Al-Sisi pardoned 100 prisoners, including journalists, people in ill-health and dozens who had been arrested for protesting. At least four of them are still being unlawfully held, while a fifth awaits release for procedural reasons, said the Front for the Defence of Egyptian Protesters, a legal group that defends detainees.

Thousands more face unfair legal proceedings, including many unlawfully detained or sentenced merely for exercising basic rights, such as freedom of assembly and association, the group said.

Among those who remain detained despite pardons are two female Mansoura University students who security forces arrested in November 2013 because they stopped clashes on campus between opponents and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. A judge sentenced each of them to two years in prison for belonging to the Brotherhood, which government prosecutors label a terrorist group. Although Al-Sisi pardoned them, Mansoura Prison officials have refused to release them because their appeal is pending.

“Some Egyptian authorities are so intent on stifling opposition that even those lucky enough to be singled out for clemency by Al-Sisi remain in prison,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. “Even if these pardons had gone off smoothly, freeing 100 people is a drop in the bucket when Egypt is jailing thousands.”

Al-Sisi issued the pardons five days before addressing the United Nations General Assembly, and his decision appeared to be aimed at resolving high-profile cases that have received the most international attention.

Other pardoned and remaining imprisoned includes Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, two Al-Jazeera journalists who were sentenced to three years in prison in August for aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, and Shadi Ibrahim, a student convicted alongside them for allegedly being “part of their plot”.

At least 42 of those who received pardons were serving sentences for protesting – most of them had been arrested specifically for challenging a ban on protests issued by a military-backed interim government in November 2013.

“The release of prominent activists and journalists should not whitewash Egypt’s recent record of detaining peaceful activists, from secular protesters to Muslim Brotherhood members,” Houry said. “At the current rate of detention, it will take many more pardons to empty Egypt’s jails of people unfairly detained.”