A Cairo court ordered the 15-day renewed detention, pending investigation, of doctors’ syndicate freedom committee member Taher Mokhtar and two other defendants arrested with him.

Mokhtar, a long-time revolutionary socialist activist, was arrested along with his roommates, students Hossam El-Din Hamed and Ahmed Hassan on 14 January from his apartment in downtown Cairo.

Mokhtar and his roommates are accused of inciting protests for the fifth anniversary of the 25 January revolution, an accusation that the doctor and roommates emphatically deny.

Several non-Islamist activists from various political movements and groups in Egypt were arrested earlier this month on charges of inciting protests on the fifth anniversary of the 25 January revolution.

Several Egyptian NGOs and human rights organisations as well as a group of prominent public figures have called for the immediate release of Mokhtar and his housemates in a campaign highlighting Dr. Taher Mokhtar's long activism in Egypt’s medical sector.

Dr. Mokhtar’s arrest came amid an extensive campaign of raids by Egyptian security forces on apartments and cafes in downtown Cairo and Giza prior to the five-year anniversary of the 25 January revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.