CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s president has pardoned a group of prisoners who include two prominent rights activists, one of whom has ties to Italy and was sentenced this week, the country’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.
Among those pardoned by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was rights activist Patrick George Zaki, who was a post-graduate student in Italy and who was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday over an opinion article he wrote in 2019, the MENA news agency said.
Also pardoned was Mohammed el-Baker, a rights lawyer, who was arrested in Sep. 2019, the agency reported. El-Baker was sentenced to four years in prison late in 2021 over charges of disseminating false news, misuse of social media and joining a terrorist group.
The report didn’t elaborate who else was pardoned. Prisoners who are pardoned usually walk free within days.
Egypt has pardoned dozens of detainees in the past several months, after its human rights record came under international scrutiny when it hosted the U.N. climate change summit in November.
Egypt’s government has been relentlessly silencing dissenters and clamping down on independent organizations for years with arrests, detentions, prison sentences and other restrictions. Thousands of political prisoners are estimated by rights groups to remain in custody in Egypt, many without trial.
The Associated Press
