Cairo: Hundreds of Egyptians protested outside the Saudi Embassy on Tuesday demanding the release of an Egyptian human rights lawyer detained in Saudi Arabia for allegedly insulting the kingdom's monarch.
The Saudi Embassy in a statement said Al Gazawi has not been convicted or sentenced in any case. Instead they said he was being questioned by authorities after airport officials found more than 20,000 anti-anxiety pills hidden inside his luggage. It also said he was not wearing pilgrims' clothes, which they said indicated he was not making a religious pilgrimage as his family maintains.
The demonstrators called for the expulsion of the Saudi ambassador in Cairo.
Anti-Saudi sentiment has flared in recent years following reports of Egyptian nationals being mistreated in the kingdom or experiencing a miscarriage of justice in a Saudi court.
In this incident, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer was arrested upon his April 17 arrival in the Saudi port of Jeddah, Al Gazawi's sister told an Egyptian television channel Monday.
Al Gazawi flew to Jeddah on his way to perform a minor pilgrimage, called umrah, to Islam's holy shrines in the Saudi cities of Makkah and Madinah, said Shereen Al Gazawi.
The fact that he was arrested on his way to perform a religious rite further enflamed Egyptian sentiment.
Al Gazawi's sister said he had been convicted in absentia and sentenced to a year in prison and 20 lashes by a Saudi court for insulting the king. However he was not notified of the court's ruling ahead of his Saudi trip.
Al Gazawi had earlier filed a lawsuit in Egypt against King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz over the alleged arbitrary detention of hundreds of Egyptians.
A partner at Al Gazawi's law firm, Mohammad Nabeel, said in recent years they have filed lawsuits concerning 34 cases of Egyptians held in Saudi detention without a stated reason or legal recourse.
Egypt's foreign ministry said it was closely following the case but warned people not to get too carried away with their anti-Saudi protests. Spokesman Amr Rushdi said Cairo was in constant contact with Saudi authorities over the arrest but said the ministry would not help feed a media campaign that incites public anger.
"Citizens should think about how they voice their views and whether they would serve the interests of the detained citizen or make it worse," he said. "This is not a football match."
Several lawmakers demanded parliament launch an inquiry into the issue.
At the protest, a woman held a picture of her son. She said he's been detained for two years in a Saudi prison. "This is my 48th sit-in over the past two years. No one listens, no one sees, and no one talks about the Egyptians' rights," she said.
In 2008, another case caused a public uproar, when two Egyptian doctors were sentenced to seven years in prison and 700 lashes each for allegedly selling illegal pharmaceuticals and driving a Saudi princess to drug addiction.
Local media and rights groups said the doctors had been wrongly blamed for the princess' alleged addiction. The two were pardoned and later returned to Egypt.
