Families of pro-Morsi detainees will protest at noon on Monday in front of the prosecutor-general’s office in downtown Cairo to demand their release.

This comes two days after 179 of the detainees reportedly started a hunger strike.

On Saturday, Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Ali Kamal announced that the detainees are going on a hunger strike to protest ill treatment, claiming that other prisoners are being incited to attack them.

Assistant Minister of Interior Mostafa Baz for the prison service sector, however, denied there are any hunger strikes in any of Egypt's prisons.

Many pro-Morsi demonstrators were arrested in the wake of recent clashes. The deposed president’s supporters, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, have been staging protests and sit-ins nationwide calling for his reinstatement.

On 8 July, at least 53 people were killed, mainly civilians, when pro-Morsi protesters clashed with the armed forces at the Republican Guard Club in Cairo.

Similarly, last week 80 civilians were killed and hundreds injured (mostly pro-Morsi protesters) when clashes with the police broke out at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Cairo’s Nasr City district.

Egypt’s general prosecution opened investigations into the two major incidents last month.

The interior ministry has issued warnings calling on pro-Morsi demonstrators to disperse and have reiterated their guarantee of a "safe exit," from the two protest centres: Rabaa Al-Adawiya and Al Nahda Square. The pro-Morsi camps cry foul, describing the ouster as a "military coup," however, and refuse to leave the sit-ins.

Morsi was deposed by the army on 3 July amid unprecedented mass nationwide protests calling for his ouster.