The Board of Trustees of the National Dialogue in Egypt urged more presidential pardons for prisoners, at the end of its third session since its approval.
The meeting came the day after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi decided to pardon 7 opposition prisoners convicted in final sentences, including Hisham Fouad (journalist), Ahmed Samir (researcher), and Tariq Al-Nahri (artist).
The council, made up of 19 members, including those affiliated with the opposition and relatively independent, said in a statement that it "held its third session (..) and set next Wednesday to complete its discussions on the proposals of the economic axis, after defining the issues of the societal and political axes in the second and third sessions."
He added: "The General Coordinator (of the Council) Diaa Rashwan and members of the Council valued the president's decisions regarding the presidential pardon, and looked forward to continuing to consider issuing more pardons during the next stage."
This is the second recommendation issued by the Council in less than two weeks. In the second session, it recommended the Egyptian President to issue amnesty decisions for prisoners.
On July 5, the first dialogue sessions at the level of the Board of Trustees started and were live, and were dominated by words from the members of the Board to clarify visions, while the second sessions (July 19) and the third (July 30) were closed, and they were dominated by discussions And classify the issues according to the proposals sent to the National Dialogue Department.
The Dialogue Department received 15,000 proposal papers, and the proposals include 3 political axes by 37%, social by 33%, and economic by 29%, according to official data of the Dialogue Department.
Among the most prominent prisoners who have been released by judicial decisions and presidential pardons since Sisi's call for dialogue are: opponents Yahya Hussein, Mohamed Mohieldin and Magdy Qarqar (affiliated with the Islamists), activist Hossam Mounes, human rights defender Amr Imam, journalists Abdel Nasser Salama and Hisham Fouad, former ambassador Yahya Negm, and artist Tariq Al-Nahri.
So far, the number of those pardoned, released and released according to presidential decisions has reached at least 138 "prisoners of conscience", since the Egyptian President announced on April 24 his intention to hold a national dialogue, according to Anadolu Agency.