Egypt's top prosecutor ordered on Monday the release of 120 preventively-detained students and elderly people.
Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat said in a statement that the release order comes in accordance to a decision he issued in November 2013 mandating a technical committee to study and revise the cases of all those preventively detained.
"The public prosecution confirms that there is evidence against all those [who remain] preventively detained proving they have committed criminal acts," the statement read. It added that the law allows those preventively detained to appeal their detention.
In its annual report on human rights conditions in over 90 countries, international watchdog Human Rights Watch said in late January that authorities have arrested at least 22,000 since the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013 and until July 2014, citing an Interior Ministry official. Most of those arrested are suspected Muslim Brotherhood supporters, HRW said.
