Update: Activist Khaled al-Sayed released from detention

Activist Khaled al-Sayed was released from detention at the Cairo International Airport, the Freedom for the Brave Facebook page reported on Friday. 

“Sayed was transferred from the airport to Azbakeyya police station, which refused to process him. They returned him to the airport where he was released,” the page added. 

Sayed was detained on Thursday by Cairo airport security as he was attempting to depart for Qatar, Freedom for the Brave said in a Facebook statement.

Airport security informed Sayed’s lawyer that the activist would be detained until he was interrogated by the National Security Agency, campaign member Khaled Abdel Hamid told Mada Masr.

Sayed, who is a member of the Revolution Path Front, sent a message to a friend early Thursday saying that he had been detained, before his mobile phone was turned off. Airport security initially denied his arrest until officials spoke to his lawyer, who confirmed his detention.

However, later on Thursday, airport security officials retracted their remarks that the activist was detained pending investigations by the National Security Agency, according to Haleem Heniesh, the lawyer representing Sayed. In a Facebook statement posted Thursday afternoon, Henish said that the security officials denied that Sayed had been taken into custody, and refused to allow his lawyer entry into their office.

But airport officials did confirm that Sayed was on a travel ban list due to charges that he committed a violent crime in remarks to the Reuters-affiliated news site Aswat Masriya. Heniesh said these remarks contradict the security forces’ claims that Sayed was not being held in detention.

Sayed had been sentenced in absentia to a month in prison, the lawyer said, but that verdict was appealed, and Sayed’s criminal investigation record was now cleared of all charges and sentences.

"For me, all remarks by security sources [denying Sayed's whereabouts] are complete lies. We hold the Interior Ministry responsible for his physical safety and we accuse [the ministry] of kidnapping and illegally detaining him," Heniesh said.

The activist was travelling to Qatar to visit his wife, who works there, when he was apprehended. According to the invitation document issued by the Qatari government, of which Mada Masr acquired a copy, Sayed was supposed to spend one month in the Gulf country.

The relationship between the Egyptian and Qatari regimes has deteriorated over the last two years since the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi. The Egyptian government has repeatedly accused Qatar of aiding the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, and shut down the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channel's operations in Egypt. Two former Al Jazeera journalists are currently facing trial on accusations of spreading false news and aiding a terrorist organization.

Sayed, a leading activist who participated in the January 25 revolution, was also arrested on the revolution’s third anniversary in 2014 for allegedly protesting without permission in violation of the contentious Protest Law.

Twitter users launched a hashtag called “Where is Khaled,” slamming authorities’ refusal to reveal his location. A recent census by the Freedom for the Brave campaign reported that at least 163 people have forcibly disappeared in the last two months.

Many of those abducted were later found arrested, sometimes tortured, by security forces. Chief among those is 23-year-old photojournalist Esraa al-Taweel, who went missing for more than two weeks before she was reportedly seen in Qanater Prison. Taweel faces charges of belonging to a terrorist organization.

“We are captives by a gang calling itself a state,” Freedom for the Brave’s Abdel Hamid asserted.

Interior Ministry officials were not available to comment.