Human rights organizations send the first list of names of prisoners and remand prisons to the committee of presidential pardon for consideration

Joint Press Release Today, 23rd May, 2022, the undersigned human rights organizations sent their first list of names of prisoners held on political or criminal cases to members of the Presidential Pardon Committee. Information was collected from families or lawyers of prisoners through an informal form that was released on the 1st of May 2022 upon the formation of the presidential pardon committee at the end of last month. The list included data on 2,418 cases, including 2,164 cases of political background, 142 cases of criminal background, and 112 cases of enforced disappearance, after we compiled and revised the forms for any repetitions. The undersigned organizations will continue to receive more forms in the coming weeks and months and send other lists, successively, to the Presidential Pardon Committee. The undersigned human rights organizations had launched an unofficial form with the aim of obtaining information and data about detainees in political cases and freedom of opinion and expression, to be submitted to members of the Presidential Pardon Committee with the aim of reviewing it and sending it to the competent authorities for their release within the amnesty lists announced earlier. In May 2021, several human rights institutions issued their demands before talking about any breakthrough in the human rights file in Egypt, in 7 specific demands, foremost of which is the release of prisoners of conscience and political detainees, which confirms the need to close the file of pretrial detention and political prisoners to pave the way towards a national dialogue, if there were real intentions to make it happen. This form comes as an attempt by civil society organizations to release prisoners of conscience and freedom of expression, or any person arbitrarily imprisoned, and to raise the grievances of prisoners in general by addressing any party concerned with their conditions. The undersigned organizations consider these lists to be directed to the Presidential Amnesty Committee in Egypt as one of the many work tools they rely on in carrying out their mission in support of victims of human rights violations. The organizations will also monitor the committee’s commitment to work on releasing political prisoners, whether convicted or remanded in custody pending cases, whose number is estimated to be in the thousands. The undersigned organizations are well aware of the depth of the plight of political prisoners in Egypt and its effects on their health, lives, and families. We have worked as much as we could towards their release. We believe that any real change in the human rights record in Egypt requires a change in policies, laws and practices of state agencies, and a political will to advance human rights in Egypt. Link to the form released by the organizations https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/4e0d77fef51443c9845e20b6547c9e64 Signatories Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) El Nadim Center Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) Freedom Initiative (FI)