The prosecutor general ordered the release Saturday of 45 students for Eid Al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A statement released Saturday said: "In the occasion of Eid Al Fitr, the prosecutor general has ordered the release of 45 preventively detained students, bearing in mind their educational/academic future." It is unclear how these specific students were chosen. The prosecutor general also ordered the release of 53 others "with health and humanitarian issues, bearing in mind their health and social circumstances." The statement added that the prosecutor is looking into the cases of "all those preventively detained in cases of rallying". At least 16,000 people have been arrested since the 3 July ouster of Muslim Brotherhood-backed Mohamed Morsi. Since Morsi's ouster, interim authorities and now-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi have cracked down on both pro-Morsi protesters and liberal activists. Wiki Thawra, an independent monitoring group, put the number of arrests at over 40,000, although that number consists of all those tried or detained since 3 July. Various human rights groups have urged Egyptian authorities to pardon those arrested for violating the controversial Protest Law signed by former interim president Adly Mansour in 2013. Rights groups say that the Protest Law effectively outlaws dissent and allows authorities to take extreme measures when dispersing ‘unlawful' protests.
