CAIRO: Egyptian prosecutors have detained a member of a group of satirists that posted a video mocking the government, a prosecution official and his lawyer said on Sunday, amid a wide-ranging crackdown on dissidents.

Police arrested Ezzedine Khaled at his apartment on Saturday and he was remanded into custody for four days, his lawyer Mahmoud Ottman said.

Khaled is a member of a group called Street Children that posts satirical songs on its Facebook page.

Its latest appears to have touched a nerve as police round up activists involved in April protests against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for handing over two islands to Saudi Arabia.

Many Egyptians believe the islands in the Straits of Tiran belong to them, although the government says they were Saudi and had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s.

The issue galvanised dissidents who say Sisi, a former military chief who overthrew his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013, now rules the country with an iron fist.

In the video, Khaled and other group members, who appear to be in their 20s, sarcastically interrogate one another.

“What do you have to say about the charges against you?” one of them asks.

“I’m not (Muslim) Brotherhood! I’m a womaniser,” another responds, referring to Morsi’s Islamist movement.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2016