Cairo: An Egyptian court on Wednesday ordered the release of controversial belly dancer and actress Sama Al Masry after paying a fine of Dh11,100 for operating an unlicensed TV station.

The Misdemeanour Court also ordered the confiscation of unlicensed equipment seized by police in Al Masry’s office.

Al Masry, an outspoken critic of Islamists, was arrested on Saturday in a police raid on her office in the Cairo quarter of Dokki.

Prosecutors charged her with illegally operating Feluoul (Holdovers), a controversial TV station that started transmission earlier this year.

There was no immediate word on the fate of the broadcaster, which was still on the air on Wednesday.

Al Masry’s lawyer, Waheed Al Kelany, said after the court hearing that she had denied charges of transmitting the TV station from Egypt without a licence. According to the lawyer, Feluoul is transmitted with licence via a Bahraini satellite and that the devices seized by police in Cairo were computers, not transmission equipment.

Feluoul has raised eyebrows among Egyptian conservatives with unorthodox shows featuring Al Masry lashing out at Islamists and detractors of the military, which deposed president Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July last year.

The station often broadcasts music videos in which Al Masry assails Mursi, Salafists and Nobel Laureate Mohammad Al Baradei, who briefly served as Egypt’s vice-president after the military’s overthrow of Mursi. Al Baradei resigned in mid-August in protest against security forces’ deadly crackdown on two mass vigils held by Mursi’s backers in Cairo.

Dozens of pro-Mursi students, angered by Al Masry’s release, held Wednesday a protest at Cairo University, raising a big banner reading: “Exclusive prostitution from Sama Al Masry”, according to witnesses.

The students also demanded the release of their colleagues detained in recent anti-military protests.

In February, Al Masry, a staunch supporter of the military, was released from detention on bail following a probe for allegedly slandering Mursi and defaming Islam on her shows.

Last year, Al Masry released a video clip comparing US President Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden and accusing Obama of siding with the Brotherhood.

She was quoted in a recent interview as saying she will run for parliament, hoping to win the seat of Mursi’s hometown in the legislature.