Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has refrained from issuing a presidential pardon within the two-week period allocated for him to do so to stop a number of Muslim Brotherhood members from facing the death penalty.

In mid-June   a court upheld the death penalty against Abdel-Rahman el-Bar, Mohamed el-Beltagy, Safwat Hegazy, Osama Yassin, Ahmed Aref, Ihab Wagdy, Muhammad Abd al-Hayy, Mustafa al-Farmawi, Ahmed Farouk, Haitham al-Arabi, Muhammad Zanati, and Abd al-Azim Ibrahim.

The Muslim Brotherhood members were convicted in the Rabaa sit-in case which saw police and security forces violently disperse unarmed protesters, arresting hundreds of them.

The Court of Cassation’s rulings are final and may not be appealed, however, a presidential pardon can commute the death sentences within 14 days of them being issued, this ended yesterday.

Following the dispersal, Egypt outlawed the Brotherhood, labelling it a ‘terror group’.