CAIRO (AFP) — Egyptian police have detained a pro-Palestinian student and blogger who is being held at an unknown location, the second such arrest in recent days, a rights group and a security official said on Monday.
Diaeddin Gad, 22, who writes the Sawt Ghadib (Angry Voice) blog, was arrested in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiyah on Friday, a security official said, without providing further details.
A source close to the security services said Gad was detained for criticising the Cairo government's policies, especially during Israel's 22-day war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip which began on December 27.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) demanded an investigation into the blogger's arrest at his home, which it said in a statement was followed by a police beating in the street.
"Bloggers have become major targets of the police authorities in Egypt, and all these assaults are committed outside the law or under the cloak of the emergency state," ANHRI said in a statement.
Egypt's emergency laws, in place since 1981, are frequently criticised by human rights groups.
The family of German-Egyptian blogger Philip Rizk, 26, said on Sunday that he was detained on Friday after organising a protest in solidarity with the Gaza Strip.
A German embassy official told AFP: "We can confirm we know about it," but declined to provide further details.
Many Arabs criticised Egypt, which has the only border crossing with the Gaza Strip to bypass Israel, for not fully opening the frontier to aid and the wounded during the war in Gaza, in which around 1,300 Palestinians died.
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