German-Egyptian blogger detained and moved to secret location by Egyptian security

[Update 10.45am GMT] Egypt police scour home of German-Egyptian activist detained after Gaza protest (AP)
[update 16.32 GMT] Sign the petition here

Earth Times report

Cairo - Egypt's domestic intelligence service, State Security Investigations, has detained a German-Egyptian graduate student after a march in support of Gaza, witnesses and his sister said Sunday. State Security briefly detained a group of 15 protesters on a rural road in Egypt's Qalubiya province, northeast of Cairo, late Friday after the group had marched 10 kilometres from Cairo to the neighboring province, witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The officers brought them to the local police station where high-ranking security officers interrogated Philip Rizk, a German-Egyptian graduate student, blogger, and film-maker.

Ahmed Droubi, a 26-year-old environmental consultant who participated in the march, said the officers seemed most interested in Rizk.

He said that he was briefly allowed to sit in on the officers' questioning of the German-Egyptian graduate student, and that Rizk had told him in that time that he had just received calls from the German ambassador and consul in Cairo.

AFP report

Egyptian security detained an Egyptian-German student pro-Palestinian blogger who helped organise a demonstration in support of the Gaza Strip, his family and a rights group said on Sunday.

Philip Rizk, a 26-year-old postgraduate student in Cairo, was detained on Friday in Qalubia, north of Cairo, where he and other activists had organised a protest in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, his sister Jeanette told AFP.

"He is still detained, and we have not heard from him directly," she said.

Nadim, an Egyptian rights group, said in a statement that Rizk was taken away in a car with concealed licence plates to an unknown destination.

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