Egypt's military prosecution released doctor and activist Abdel Rahman Mostafa on Sunday after several hours of interrogation on charges of harming national security.
Mostafa, who is the founder of the “Demands of Egypt’s Doctors” page on Facebook, was summoned by the military on Saturday for questioning over his call for a doctors' strike on 10 September.
Mona Mina, from the Doctors Without Rights movement, said that a protest scheduled for Sunday outside the cabinet was canceled after the decision to release Mostafa was announced.
Mostafa had called for a strike to demand the restructuring of doctors’ salaries, the securing of hospitals against thuggery, and the sacking of corrupt senior officials at the Health Ministry.
Since the toppling of Hosni Mubarak on 11 February, there have been frequent attacks on hospitals. Some blame the attacks on thugs, while others blame them on people angry at the poor treatment provided to those injured in the recent uprising.
The Health Ministry said last week that it had assigned security experts to devise a plan for securing hospitals, and that the plan would depend on private security personnel.
After Mostafa's arrest, activists created a page on Facebook named “We’re all abdel Rahman Mostafa” to express solidarity with him. Among the posts on the site was one claiming that officers from the National Security Agency had been in communication with officials at the hospital where he worksin order to get information about him.
