Egyptian police arrested at least 24 people on Tuesday for staging an illegal protest in downtown Cairo, Reuters' Aswat Masriya reported.
A source told the website that it was unclear whether those arrested are affiliated with the Dank movement that called for protests on Tuesday against the increasingly high cost of life in Egypt.
Dank, which means extreme poverty in Arabic, had called on people to hold demonstrations at subsidised supermarkets, public hospitals and transportation facilities to protest the country's deteriorating services, according to the movement's Facebook page.
The group's spokesman Marwa El-Adl told Ahram Online earlier in the day that the protest would continue throughout the day – but she said the largest gathering would be at 2:00pm local time at metro stations.
"If security cracks down us, then they are proving that this is regime is a failure ... and they will push people until they blow up," she said.
A new protest law, issued last November, criminalises unauthorised demonstrations and scores of protesters have been arrested since then.
The Dank movement has already held limited protests in governorates nationwide and staged demonstrations in Cairo's metro stations.
The interior ministry said previously that it would raise its security levels in anticipation of the protests.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, sound bombs went off in Sayeda Zeinab and Zahraa El-Maadi metro stations, causing no casualties, an interior ministry official said.
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