Cairo -

An independent Egyptian research center has documented that more than 16 thousand people with a political background were subjected to security and judicial prosecution during the years 2020 and 2021, in the governorates of the Republic, with the exception of North Sinai.

According to the report issued by the Transparency Center for Research, Documentation and Data Management last Monday, more than half of the suspects were referred to the State Security Prosecution, while the rest were submitted to the Public Prosecution, with the exception of one person who was brought before the Military Prosecution.

Since the beginning of May, there has been talk in Egypt of a national dialogue called for by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, as well as an expected presidential pardon for a large number of prisoners of conscience, whether convicted or subject to pretrial detention in connection with political cases.

While the reactions of political forces and activists to the call for dialogue varied, everyone agreed that the first step required of the government is the release of political detainees, and that their release does not require dialogue in the first place.

scary numbers

The report defined the case of “arrest and accusation against a political background” as every security action (arrest or arrest) or judicial (accusation with an arrest and summons decision) against people with a political background.

The database prepared by the Center included more than 16,000 incidents of security or judicial action, including 10,000 during the year 2020 and about 5,800 during the year 2021, against people with a political background in all governorates of the Republic, except for North Sinai, through more than 300 districts. Police Department, City and Center.

The number - in the database - is distributed between 15,710 cases of referral to the prosecution (including 2201 cases of rotation meaning referral to a new case), and 161 cases of "suspension and dismissal of the report" or "no minutes were made in the first place", in addition to 194 cases that were not completed. In it, information was obtained about the presentation of the accused to the Public Prosecution Office or his dismissal without a report.

According to the report, it has been confirmed that final release decisions have been issued against 5,200 people, or 32.5%, and the continued detention - whether pretrial detention or serving a sentence - 4,801 people, or 30%, while it was not possible to ascertain the last legal status of about 6,063 other people, or 38%.

The report also monitored 45 deaths among those arrested during the years 2020 and 2021, knowing that no work was done to monitor deaths separately, noting that not all deaths occurred during the past two years.

Victims of recycling

The Transparency Center for Research, Documentation and Data Management had previously documented - about two weeks ago - that 1,764 detainees were rotated pending other cases, after the end of their pre-trial detention periods or the issuance of decisions to release them or verdicts of their innocence, after the same previous accusations or similar accusations were brought against them with the aim of continuing their detention, And that was from January 2018 to the end of December 2021, with a total of 2,744 incidents.

The report's authors expressed only what they were able to monitor, not the total of those who were subjected to this violation, citing the scarcity of government data and the difficulty of accessing data on partial prosecutions, according to a statement by one of the report's authors to the independent website Mada Masr.

waiting for pardon

The Egyptian political forces are still waiting for the authorities to implement their promises to release political activists, and civil movement spokesman Khaled Dawoud told Mada Masr that the movement's parties are waiting for the relevant authorities to implement their promises - since last Eid al-Fitr - to release dozens of political prisoners as a step to prove their seriousness dialogue.

Last Thursday, Daoud explained that they informed the authorities that not leaving prisoners of conscience would lose the expected dialogue's credibility, and that the authorities promised to release a batch on Eid al-Fitr, then they said the end of last week, then this week, and nothing has happened so far.

A member of the Presidential Pardon Committee, Kamal Abu Aita, agreed with Daoud about the delay in implementing the concerned authorities on their promises to release prisoners, saying that the committee had submitted a list of release and amnesty for more than a thousand prisoners who agreed to their release from all, and had received promises that that list would be released since the beginning of May However, the security services have not yet completed their exit procedures.

Abu Aita indicated that the list expected to be released includes a number of politicians, led by Yahya Hussein Abdel Hadi, the first official spokesman for the civil movement, Hisham Fouad, Haitham Mohammedin, lawyer Muhammad Ramadan, and former parliamentarian Ziad Al-Alimi, and includes a large number of public transport workers and insurance companies. Unjustly imprisoned in terrorism cases.