Egyptian security forces raided cafes in downtown Cairo and took activists from their homes on 22 April in a coordinated crackdown ahead of planned protests on 25 April over the transfer of the Tiran and Sanafir Islands to Saudi Arabia, prisoners’ rights group Freedom for the Brave said in a statement on Facebook. According to the campaign, arrests were also reported in Alexandria and Gharbeyyia province. On 15 April thousands took to the streets in defiance of the Sisi regime, raising demands for the release of political prisoners and justice for victims of disappearances and police killings alongside call for the return of the islands to Egyptian sovereignty. The crackdown is widely seen as a pre-emptive strike against the reviving confidence of political activists to take to the streets.

Labour lawyer and Haitham Mohamedain, a member of the Revolutionary Socialists, was among those arrested in a dawn raid on his home and reportedly detained in Al-Saf police station. According to lawyers supporting the detainees and their families, some of those arrested in the raids on downtown cafes were released Friday afternoon, while others are currently being interrogated by National Security officers.

What you can do:

• Send protest letters to the Egyptian authorities via the embassy of Egypt in your country calling for the immediate release of all the detainees