Egyptian police arrested an activist and researcher who was a vocal critic of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government, the interior ministry and a human rights group said Sunday.
Patrick George Zaki, 27, was detained at Cairo's international airport after returning from Italy on Friday, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a local NGO, where he works as a researcher. He was taken to the prosecutor's office in his home city of Mansoura in the Nile Delta.
Zaki's arrest was the latest in an unprecedented crackdown on dissent waged by El-Sissi in recent years. Thousands have been arrested - both secular-leaning activists and Islamist opponents - all while rolling back freedoms won after the so-called Arab Spring uprising in 2011.
Zaki had been on leave from the NGO since last August while pursuing a master's degree in gender studies at the University of Bologna, the group said.