Egyptian authorities arrest activist and former government official Yehia Hussein Abdel Hady

Egyptian authorities arrested political activist and the former spokesperson of the Civil Democratic Movement Yehia Hussein Abdel Hady early on Thursday for a social media post, his lawyer Khaled Ali said.

Security personnel in civilian clothing arrested him while he was in a car with the former coordinator of the National Association for Change, Abdel Galil Mostafa.

According to Mostafa, they were in the car together on their way to an event at the headquarters of the opposition Karama Party when a car stopped next to them at a traffic light to arrest Abdel Hady.

Abdel Hady was brought before the State Security Prosecution and was handed a 15-day detention, pending further investigations according to Mada Masr.

The charges against him included "joining a terrorist organisation", "misusing social media platforms" and "broadcasting and publishing false news" and "financing and inciting terrorism" .

Abdel Hady’s post on Facebook on 23 July read "for how long will the army remain silent?" and also included criticism of the state, political opposition and leaders of the Armed Forces.

The prosecution quizzed Abdel Hady over his posts before transferring him to the 10th of Ramadan detention facility.

The Civil Democratic Movement condemned Abdel Hady’s arrest, saying it was a "negative signal aimed at terrorising and contradicting the claims of a breakthrough," in a statement.

The Secretary-General of the Egyptian Socialist Party, Ahmed Bahaa Shaaban, proposed the idea of implementing a symbolic strike if such arrests continue, The New Arab’s Arabic language sister publication, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

"The arrest of Yehia Hussein Abdel Hadi, in this brutal manner, has a very negative impact on the climate in Egypt, which is already tense due to the huge number of detainees, the latest of whom is the cartoonist Ashraf Omar for his criticism of the blatant extravagance in spending on a monorail project at the expense of the livelihood of millions of ordinary people…" he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

The Egyptian government has jailed tens of thousands of dissidents and political opponents, often on trumped-up "terrorism" and "fake news" charges ever since the 2013 military coup that brought current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to cover.

This is not the first time Abdel Hady has been sentenced to prison. In January, the Nasr City Misdemeanour Court gave him a one year sentence on charges of spreading false news inside and outside the country.

The sentencing was based on three articles he wrote between August 2022 and March 2023, which criticised state bodies. However, the ruling was later  suspended.

According to Amnesty International, since July Egyptian authorities have arrested 119 people, including at least seven women and one child amid calls for ant-government protests and rising public discontent over increased costs of living and ongoing power outages.