The US Senate’s longest serving member has rebuked Egyptian authorities for continuing to detain activist and blogger Alaa Abdel-Fattah, calling his treatment “reminiscent of the Middle Ages”.

A security source denied circulated rumors on a satellite channel loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood about the death of a suspect at a police station in the Matruh Governorate from torture.

Leaked photos of the corpse of Egyptian economic researcher Ayman Hadhoud suggest he was tortured before his death, contrary to official claims.

Rights groups have raised concerns about the whereabouts of a prominent Egyptian journalist after she was detained by security officials on Thursday.

A leading human rights advocacy group is urging Egyptian authorities to release the autopsy report and investigate the suspicious death of an economic researcher detained two months ago.

Egypt’s interior ministry is currently building a new prison complex in Sinai, northeast of the country, enough to accommodate 20,000 inmates, according to a local media outlet.

Omar Hadhoud, the brother of economic researcher Ayman Hadhoud who was discovered on Saturday to have died in custody at a psychiatric hospital one month earlier, was summoned on Monday for questioning by the Public Prosecution, he told Mada Masr.

Amnesty International said a number of political activists who have been arbitrarily detained in Egypt’s notorious Tora Prison have started a hunger strike to protest the harsh conditions and ill treatment they are enduring.

Former Egyptian presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul-Fotouh has been subjected to a “barbaric” assault by guards in his cell at the notorious Tora prison complex, according to his family.

Eight prominent Egyptian human rights organisations called on the Egyptian authorities to enact real reform at prisons and detention centres, rather than merely adopting a law that they described as a “farce…intended to provide an illusion of reform.”