President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a presidential decree pardoning 85 debtors who are serving sentences in correctional and rehabilitation centers on the occasion of Ramadan.
“I was talking to Minister of the Interior, and he told me that they were all released today with honor and dignity. They are 85 male and female debtors,” Sisi said during a celebration to honor the ideal mother on Monday.
“Your honor kindly issued a decision to pardon all the debtors who are in the reform and rehabilitation centers, numbering 85 prisoners, including 40 women and 45 men, and the decision was implemented,” Minister of Interior Mohamed Tawfeek, said.
The Deputy head of the Human Rights Committee in the House of Representatives, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the Reform and Development Party Ayman Abul-Ela back in 2022 called on the Presidential Pardon Committee to consider all those who have spent half the sentence of those who are indebted, because it is a societal issue.
Abul-Ela called on the Presidential Pardon Committee to consider all those who have spent half the sentence of those who are indebted, because it is a societal issue.
He also stressed the vital role societal awareness plays confronting the excessive requirements of marriage and dowries, as it has become a real crisis that leads to more indebted prisoners.
Sisi aids debtors in need
Sisi’s efforts to release debtors date back several years ago when he was a minister of defense in August 2013, when the armed forces decided to pay back the money owed by female households who were sentenced to prison on cases of checks without balance, releasing around 48 prisoners at the time.
At the beginning of 2015, Sisi then launched a similar initiative with a different name to release successive batches of debtors starting in February of the same year, helping more than 1,100 cases.
During June 2018 in Eid al-Fitr, Sisi launched a new initiative announcing the end of the debtor dilemma in Egypt by paying the debts of 960 people from the Tahya Misr fund.
On July 23 2018, in commemoration of the July 23 revolution, the prison sector released around 683 debtors after paying their debts.
