The head of Egypt's National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) Mohamed Fayek met earlier Wednesday with Minister of Interior Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar to discuss a number of issues related to human rights and to hand over their annual report, several news websites reported.
The council's annual report covered the period from 30 June 2013 to December 2014.
Fayek also discussed with Abdel-Ghaffar suggestions sent by the council to the government's High Legislative Reform Committee regarding the Prisons Law.
Among the suggestions by the NCHR in regards to the Prisons Law is to allow visits by the humans rights council to prisons by notification, and to not extend the period of punishment inside jails for more than one week.
Mohamed Fayek gave the report to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Tuesday.
According to Alaa Youssef, the official spokesperson for the presidency, the NCHR report included five sections about the general situation of human rights in Egypt, fact-finding reports, as well as a number of recommendations.
Salah Fawzi, a member of the High Legislative Reform Committee, announced earlier Wednesday that the committee was discussing the NCHR's suggestion to give the council members the power of arrest, as an amendment to the NCHR law.
In a statement to parliamentary reporters on Wednesday, Fawzi added that there were two issues standing against giving NCHR members the right to arrest citizens.
"First, the power to arrest citizens is regulated by the law and second, the members of the NCHR are non-governmental officials- the power of arrest is given to governmental officials only," he told the reporters.
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