Rights group urges Egypt to release detained activists

ISTANBUL

A global rights group Monday reiterated its call on Egyptian authorities to release detained rights activists, who work for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

"We are standing in solidarity with them today and call on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release EIPR staff." Amnesty International wrote on Twitter.

The rights group said that the three activists are held for questioning by the State Security Prosecution.

It urged the Egyptian authorities to end what it said a "vicious crackdown on EIPR”.

Earlier, EIPR confirmed the arrest of three of its staffers -- Gasser Abdel-Razek, Mohamed Basheer and Karim Ennarah.

The UN, the US, France, Britain, Germany, Canada and Italy have condemned the arrest of the activists.

In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry claimed that EIPR is licensed as a "company" but perform activities in violation of its license.

The Egyptian authorities consider Amnesty as "a hostile body", as it usually highlights the Human rights violations in the country.

There has been growing criticism of the Middle Eastern state's human rights record under President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who came into power after toppling the country’s first elected President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 via a military coup.

* Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara