Egypt's president announces pardon for dozens of political prisoners President Mohammed Morsi has come under fire for a speech last weekend in which he claimed successes for his first 100 days in office which many deemed unrealistic. Now in a bid to reassert his popular and revolutionary credentials he has announced he will free all those arrested or convicted for crimes "in support of the revolution" between the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in February last year and his own election this June. He did not give precise details, other than to say it would not apply to anyone convicted of murder. Human rights activists claim thousands of people, possibly as many as 5,000, are still in jail, many having been convicted by military courts, after being detained in protests against the interim military government that took over from Mr Mubarak. As well as his record on tackling issues from the economy to Cairo's traffic, Mr Morsi has been criticised for taking over all authority from the interim government, meaning he is technically more powerful than Mr Mubarak was. He has also said he is considering introducing a new emergency law, even though the Mubarak's regime's 30-year state of emergency was one of the main grievances of the protesters who overthrew it last year. His new announcement gives the prosecutor-general and military prosecutor one month to draw up a list of those to whom it may apply. It may also have been a response to critical reports issued in the last week firstly by Amnesty International, attacking the government's failure to reform the treatment of prisoners and protesters by the army and police, and secondly by Human Rights Watch. The latter, published on Monday, said preliminary drafts of Egypt's new constitution contradicted its obligations under international treaties which it had already signed, particularly on rights of women, freedom of speech and trafficking of women and minors.