CAIRO (MEMO) – Egypt is refusing to release detainees despite issuing a decision to release them, according to reports in the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
The Egyptian Network for Human Rights said that security services are yet to release a number of prisoners.
“Despite a decision being released six days ago to free 40 prisoners of conscience, families are complaining that they have not yet been let go,” the network said in a statement.
A member of Egypt’s Presidential Pardon Committee, Tariq al-Khouli, published the names of 30 political prisoners on 19 August who are set to be released. They were held in pre-trial detention on charges relating to “issues of publishing and joining a banned group”.
The decision to release them gave hope to many families over the release of their loved ones. However, within hours of the decision to release the prisoners, authorities arrested a group of new people, according to Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
The most prominent of those arrested during the past few days is the publisher Hisham Qassem, head of the Board of Trustees of the Free Movement.
Many expressed their solidarity with Qassem, after he was transferred to the Tenth of Ramadan Prison in Cairo, in preparation for his trial on 2 September on charges of “insulting and slandering a former minister”.
Others arrested include journalist Mohamed Saad Khattab, the father of activist Ahmed Gamal Ziada, and Alaa el-Din Saad el-Adly, the father of political activist Fajr el-Adly.