The second list of prisoners who will receive official pardons is expected to be announced this weekend once it has been approved by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi. The Detained Youth Committee drew up its second list of prisoners who are recommended to be pardoned and sent it to the presidency late this week. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press no specific details about the pending pardon list had been announced, due to the confidentiality requirements of the Detained Youth Committee. But according to MP and committee member Tarek Al-Khouli, the list will be longer than the first one, which included prisoners and gave priority to cases of illness, women and students. "It is difficult to announce specific numbers or names that the second list will include, as this information should be disclosed through the presidency. But we have striven to make the second list longer than the first one," Al-Khouli said. The National Council for Human Rights and committee member Mohamed Abdel-Aziz told Ahram Online that writer “Ahmed Nagi has been included on the second list" presented to the presidency. Nagi is an author and journalist serving two years in prison for publishing a “sexually explicit article” in a state-owned literary newspaper. The Detained Youth Committee, formed last month, is headed by prominent politician and member of the Free Egyptians Party Osama Al-Ghazali Harb and includes writer Nashwa Al-Houfi, MP Tarek Al-Khouli, Abdel-Aziz and Karim Al-Sakka, a former member of Al-Sisi's electoral campaign. It was initially decided when the committee was formed last month that its work would span 15 days, but it has since been decided that its work will continue until further notice. "The moment the committee no longer receives prisoner names and finishes examining the received ones is the moment it will end its work," Al-Khouli said. At the National Youth Conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh in October, Al-Sisi issued a directive to form the committee to reconsider the legal status of some prisoners after the conference heard demands from participants to pardon some of the young people being detained. The committee was created days following the end of the National Youth Conference, held from 25 to 27 October. Al-Sisi granted presidential pardons last month to 82 prisoners after receiving a recommended list of prisoners' names from the Detained Youth Committee. The first list included 22 students and 22 workers, among others. The pardons also included TV presenter Islam Al-Beheiri, sentenced to one year in prison in December 2015 on charges of blasphemy. Journalist Abdel-Aziz Mahmoud and photo-journalist Mohamed Ali Salah were also among the detainees granted pardons. Before the announcement of the first pardoned list, the criteria set by the committee for those to be pardoned included not having committed acts of violence, incited violence, or belonging to a terrorist group. The criteria stirred controversy because some observers believed they could lead to excluding detained activists and young people who had taken part in unlicensed protests, such as prominent activists Ahmed Doma, Alaa Abdel-Fattah and Ahmed Maher. Doma, Abdel-Fattah and Maher are political activists who were among the symbols of the 25 January Revolution. They also took part in the 2013 Revolution that ousted former president Mohamed Morsi. They are serving harsh prison sentences for clashing with the security forces and unlicensed protesting. “Almost all the prisoners who were arrested for staging illegal protests are facing accusations of violence,” Doma's wife said. She asked how the committee would decide who was violent and who was not. Al-Houfi said the three activists "are cited as prisoners who will be excluded due to their Brotherhood affiliations.” But Al-Ghazali Harb said the committee would not consider the political affiliations of the detainees in compiling lists and that there was a difference between someone who was already a member of a violent group and someone accused of belonging to such a group. “Al-Houfi's statement is her own, and it does not reflect the committee's opinion. What comes out of the committee will be decisions in accordance with the task for which it was commissioned,” Al-Ghazali Harb said. "There has been a huge number of prisoner names submitted to us, and we have examined all of them. Of course this takes time, as going through the lists is not easy.” "Even attaining an accurate list of detainees is extremely difficult in the light of the overlapping lists we have received from different entities," Al-Ghazali Harb added. The committee receives the names of detainees from the National Council of Human Rights (NCHR), the parliament's human rights committee, in addition to online requests made on a website launched following the National Youth Conference last month. As a result, according to Al-Khouli about 40 per cent of the prisoners' names appear more than once and it takes more time to compile an accurate list. "There are a series of problems facing the committee's work. The most notable is that there are a large number of detained youth in cases related to protests that have not gone through the courts and are still at the disposal of the general prosecutor. As a result, the president doesn't have the right to pardon them," Al-Ghazali Harb said. He said the committee was looking at legal ways to render such young people eligible for presidential pardons. Under Egyptian law, individuals held in precautionary detention do not qualify for a presidential pardon. Article 155 of the constitution stipulates that only “the President of the Republic may issue a pardon or mitigate a sentence after consulting with the cabinet.” A year ago, Al-Sisi pardoned 100 prisoners, including three Al-Jazeera television journalists hours before travelling to the annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York. A new law is being drawn up to give the president the authority to pardon detainees whose cases are pending investigation. Until this is passed, the general prosecutor holds jurisdiction in such cases.
