The logo of the April 6 Youth Movement (Photo: Al-Ahram)
The April 6 Youth Movement's splinter group the Democratic Front said Thursday, in a press release, that it would consider endorsing the Political Pardon Law should it exclude those who are serving life sentences or facing the death penalty.
The Political Pardon Law, which was recently suggested at the People’s Assembly, is yet to be ratified. It stipulates that people who were convicted of sedition or being part of an unlawful group during the Mubarak era, like the Muslim Brotherhood, could be reprieved.
The Democratic Front, formed by former members of the April 6 Youth Movement, said that they supported the law but only under “certain conditions.”
“We suggest preparing a list of the opposition leaders and political activists who should be granted absolution,” the statement read, “providing that those who are serving life sentences or facing execution for being involved in the killing of Egyptians in the 1990s should not be pardoned.”
They also added that those who fought Hosni Mubarak’s regimes with weapons, which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, should also not be reprieved.
Groups such as Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya and Al-Jihad tended to resort to terror in the 1980s and 1990s to accomplish their objectives against the state, although after the January 25 Revolution Al-Jamaa entered the formal political arena with their newly-established Building and Development Party.
Al-Jamaa members are most famous for assassinating president Anwar El-Sadat in 1981 during the commemoration ceremony of the 1973 victory over Israel in the October War. The group was also responsible for a number of bombings over nearly two decades.
Security forces launched a crackdown on the group and consequently their presence has barely been felt for over a decade. They decided to choose the political route in June 2011 after “the popular uprising paved the way for a real democratic environment.”
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