Press Release
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The Egyptian Coalition for Human Rights and Development (ECHRD), the Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue (FDHRD), and the Arab Network for Digital Media and Human Rights welcomed the decisions announced by the Egyptian authorities to release activists and journalists, the reformation of the Presidential Pardon Committee, and the start of a political dialogue between all parties.
The fact that these decisions accompany the issuance of the National Strategy for Human Rights and the declaration of 2022 as the year of civil society, in addition to ending the state of emergency, indicates the existence of a political will on the part of the Egyptian state to improve human rights conditions. Moreover, the ongoing dialogue between the state and civil society organizations has significantly contributed to the issuance of the decisions announced by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during the ‘Egyptian Family Iftar’, which was widely welcomed by large sectors of unions and NGOs.
The human rights organizations that signed the statement value the measures announced by the Presidential Pardon Committee after its reformation, which include launching an electronic form to record requests submitted to the Committee through the National Youth Congress website. It has been made available to any person who is detained pending a case or has been sentenced, where their family can register their data through this form, in addition to contacting the Human Rights Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Complaints Committee of the National Council for Human Rights and members of the Committee in person.
While the organizations welcome these positive developments, they call upon the Egyptian Parliament, in its two chambers, to amend the pretrial detention law with the aim of ending the crisis of long-term detention, and to use alternatives to pretrial detention such as an electronic bracelet and limiting residence within a specific geographical scope.
The openness to dialogue between youth and political currents, and concern for the right to freedom of expression push human rights in Egypt to better horizons. It achieves for the Egyptian citizen the ability to enjoy the rights stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also achieves long-term political stability for the Egyptian state.
