Cairo: Egypt’s state news agency says a prominent rights lawyer has been detained for 15 days pending investigation into a string of allegations including plotting a coup, two weeks after security forces stifled demonstrations against the president’s decision to give up two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia last month.
Malek Adli, one of the country’s most vocal critics of Egyptian police abuses, was arrested early Friday after an arrest warrant was issued against him and eight others, including journalists and activists, who had called for the protests against the islands’ transfer.
Two of them were arrested in a police raid of the Journalists’ Syndicate on Sunday. The arrests sparked protests by hundreds of journalists who called for Interior Minister Magdy Abdul Ghaffar’s dismissal and a presidential apology.
