Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Friday that Interim President Adly Mansour refused to issue a presidential decree pardoning detained activists, upon the request of the National Council for Human Rights.
Mansour rejected the council's request in a meeting Wednesday with the National Council for Human Rights saying he did not want to interfere with the judiciary through exceptional procedures.
Informed sources, who preferred to stay anonymous, said Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, Kamal al-Helbawy, Mohamed Abdel Qoddous, and Ahmed Aboul Wafa attended the meeting.
Deputy head of the council Abdel Ghaffar Shokr submitted a memorandum to Mansour that included the council's vision of a number of issues, and included dozens of human rights complaints.
Hafez Abu Se'da, a member of the Council, told Al-Masry Al-Youm the meeting tackled the living conditions in prisons and the overcrowding of patient prisoners in prison-affiliated hospitals.
The council also requested amending the prison regulations with regard to increasing the prisoners' hours of exercise.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
