Supreme State Security Prosecution ordered detained researcher Kholoud Saeed to 15 days in custody pending investigations into case no. 1017 of year 2020. The prosecution’s decision came after the disappearance of Saeed from Al Muntazah Police Station on December 26, where she was detained.

Kholoud Saeed is a translator and researcher who works as the head of the translation department in Alexandria Library. She was arrested in April 2020 as part of the crackdown launched by the Egyptian security against writers and doctors who criticised on social media the state’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Saeed was later accused of joining a terrorist group and publishing false news and was added to case no. 558 of year 2020. On December 13, the court ordered her release, and she was transferred from the prison to the police station in preparation. However, she was disappeared later.

The expansion of Saeed’s detention, the same as other detainees such as Ibrahim Ezz el-Deen and Abdel Rahman Mocha, indicates what Egypt Watch had previously reported about the intentions of the Egyptian security to tighten its fist on society, which means doubling the suffering of detainees who need urgent help from the international community.