Egypt’s Public Prosecutor Hamada El-Sawi ordered an urgent investigation into a text conversation circulated on social media of a person insulting Prophet Muhammad, as it represents a “contempt of religion” offence, an official statement read.

The monitoring and analysis unit of the public prosecution said the alleged offender lives in Ismailia governorate, but did not mention further details on his identity.

The prosecution office in Ismailia started investigating the incident, the statement said, after a number of lawyers on Wednesday filed complaints against the suspect.

The office tasked relevant departments of the Interior Ministry with finding out information about the circumstances of the incident, spotting the offender, and disclosing the relation between him and the owner or user of the violating account.

This comes after social media users have used hashtags to protest an act of insulting Islam’s prophet by a young man in Ismailia, who many people claim is working as a teacher.

The suspect, with the nickname “Geo Hany” has used derogatory language in reference to the Prophet.

The incident comes only few days after the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education referred a professor in Alexandria to the country’s top prosecutor for the same charge, after a video went viral online showing the professor using bad language in reference to the Quran during a lecture.

The professor, who is a staff member of Alexandria’s Higher Institute of Social Work, is seen in the video - which was filmed by a student - in what appeared to be a heated discussion with students about marriage traditions. When one of the students claimed his argument was supported by a verse from the Quran, the professor dismissed the holy verse in a derogatory manner.

The professor then hurled insults at the students and ordered them to leave his class.