Abdel Rahman Mohamed-Cairo

Egyptian security forces on Sunday arrested an Egyptian opposition activist, Sanaa Seif, near Tahrir Square in central Cairo, sources from her family said.

Her sister Mona wrote that a security force stopped her at Bab al-Louq Street in downtown area near Tahrir Square, and when she refused to hand her over her mobile phone and upheld her legal right, the force stopped her and took her to the Abdin police station.

Mona reported that although the security agents stationed at the point had stopped her sister, they told her and her mother that Sana had been taken to the Abdin section, but the section denied her access.

The arrest of the activist Sanaa comes a week after the Egyptian authorities re-arrested her brother, political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, and days after the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights issued a statement criticizing the search of mobile phones to citizens and stop them for this.

Ahmed al-Attar, a researcher at the Egyptian Coordination for Rights, said that the arrest of activist Sanaa Seif comes in the context of "the Egyptian Interior Ministry continuing its repressive policies and state terrorism against citizens."

He continued in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net "Egyptian authorities are still a clear violation of the articles of the Constitution and the law, and never in any civilized country that the Ministry of Interior inspected the contents of mobile phones citizens .. This has only happened in repressive police states."

It is noteworthy that Sanaa Seif is the daughter of the late prominent jurist in Egypt Ahmed Saif al-Islam Abdel Fattah, and the sister of the prominent activist currently imprisoned Alaa Abdel Fattah.

The activist had been sentenced to two years in prison for violating the controversial demonstration law, but was granted a presidential pardon months later, and six months in prison for inciting demonstrations and distributing leaflets to citizens.