Egyptian authorities have also acknowledged that they had detained a Google executive named Wael Ghonim, who had mysteriously disappeared a week ago. Ghonim was an administrator to a Facebook page that helped inspire the protests. Earlier today, protesters in Tahrir Square held a symbolic funeral procession for Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud, the Egyptian journalist who was shot dead by a sniper while he was covering the protests. On Saturday, the Egyptian government released 35 foreign and Egyptian human rights activists on Saturday, including a representative from Amnesty International.

Salil Shetty, secretary general of Amnesty: “We suspect that this is a very premeditated attack from the government and the authorities, because they don’t want Amnesty International to record human rights violations, they don’t want to be held to account, which is what Amnesty does, and they want to distract us from what we are doing. Rather than focusing on the substance of what’s happening in Egypt, they want us to spend all our time figuring out where — what’s the security and safety of our staff.”