Egypt orders release of 151 students, minors from pretrial detention

Egypt Attorney General Mohamed Shawky yesterday ordered the release of a batch of 151 students and minors held in pretrial detention pending investigations into various cases.

The Attorney General recommended the batch to only include students and minors and not others, after “a pledge filed by their families to return them to the right path,” according to human rights lawyer Khaled Al-Masry.

Authorities released 1,662 prisoners during the two rounds of the National Dialogue in April 2022 and mid-July 2023; however, they detained 4,968 new prisoners on politically motivated charges, according to the Until the Last Prisoner campaign, an initiative led by Egyptian human rights defenders.

The campaign, affiliated with the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, also found that 1,286 new arrests had been made, 671 people received renewed detention orders, and only 803 people were released, from the beginning of 2024 until the start of the National Dialogue sessions on 1 July.

The campaign noted that 82 per cent of those released had exceeded the absolute legal limit set by the Egyptian Code of Criminal Procedure, which is two years.

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