President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi pardoned Wednesday 165 prisoners, including minors, convicted of breaching the 2013 protest law, according to a Wednesday presidential statement.
Sisi signed the pardon decree Wednesday morning to for the prisoners to join their families on the first day of Ramadan, Thursday. Ramadan in the 9th month in the Islamic calendar Islamic Calendar during which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.
On April 2, Sisi pardoned 106 prisoners with final sentences; while 68 inmates were released per the same decree in March.
According to President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s decree, issued in January, released prisoners must have served half the term of their final sentences and their offences must not have been violent crimes or attacking public or police properties.
Issuance of the Wednesday decree coincides with a call from relatives of some imprisoned youth to stage a protest outside the presidential palace of Ittihadiya June 12. The protest is planned to be attended by women.
Activists Sanaa Seif, Yara Sallam and 22 other defendants were handed down two years in prison, three years before their appeal, over violating the controversial protest law as they protested outside Ittihadiya in June 2014.
The list of names of prisoners to be freed does not include the said activists or photojournalist Mahmoud Abou Zeid, also known as Shawkan.
