Egyptian activist Sherif Gaber arrested

On May 2, Sherif Gaber, a well-known Egyptian blogger, posted the above text. It states that he was in a police station and if nothing more was heard from him in an hour, he was arrested.

Under pressure from the Islamist Al-Nour Party, Egypt has for some time now been increasingly taking action against free thinkers who are critical of Islam. The Al-Nour party has a very fundamentalist attitude towards Islam and received more than a quarter of the votes cast in a radical Islamist alliance in the 2011 parliamentary elections.

Egypt has been home to atheist activists for quite some time, who have also had their say in the official media. But in recent years they have been increasingly persecuted.