BBC News Middle East

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has been mocked on social media over a high-profile announcement that the government planned to build the country's largest-ever prison complex.

Critics of the president's announcement said they were expecting the authorities to build hospitals, schools and houses in a country which has a severe housing shortage and a water crisis.

Areej Algana wrote: "I have always heard about presidents bragging about the largest medical, industrial or scientific complex but not about a prison complex. It is a first."

Haytham Abokhalil commented: "This comes at a time when there's a shortage in hospitals and schools. Welcome to the national human rights strategy."

Egypt has been criticised by human rights groups and the United Nations for its human rights records. They say that under President Sisi the country has seen its heaviest crack down on dissidents.

The US has decided to withhold a portion of its aid to Cairo unless human rights conditions improve including the release of activists.

Amnesty International has accused the security services in Egypt of intimidating and harassing human rights activists in order to try to silence them.

The campaign group interviewed 25 people for a new report called: This will only end when you die.

Amnesty says that most of those interviewed said they lived in constant fear of being detained by the National Security Agency.

The group has called on President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to put an end to what it called extrajudicial harassment.

Mr Sisi has overseen a major offensive against political dissent since taking power in 2014.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Libyan forces loyal to the eastern-based commander, General Khalifa Haftar, have been clashing in the south of the country with rebels from neighbouring Chad.

Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army said it had carried out air strikes.

The rebels, from a group called the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, said their positions on the border between the two countries had been attacked.

It claimed French forces allied with Gen Haftar had been involved. France denies this.

Analysts say the fighting is another example of the instability of the Sahel region, where a range of armed groups operate across borders.

The Moroccan security forces say they've broken up a cell of militants linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

Three arrests were made in the southern city of Errachidia.

The suspects have been accused of plotting the imminent killing of a public servant.

The name of the target hasn't been revealed.

AFPCopyright: AFP

The International Judo Federation (IJF) has imposed 10-year bans on an Algerian player and his coach because they pulled out of the Olympics in order to avoid a bout with an Israeli.

The IJF said Fethi Nourine and Amar Benikhlef had used the Tokyo Games as a platform for protest and the promotion of propaganda.

The Algerian player said his support for the Palestinian cause had made it impossible for him to compete.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

"We are terrified. Only death awaits us if we are deported to Eritrea," two Eritreans detained in Egypt have been quoted by rights group Amnesty International as saying.

Amnesty - along with other groups and activists - have launched a campaign to secure the release of Kibrom Adhanom Okbazghi and Alem Tesfay Abraham, and to prevent their deportation.

The campaign was launched following reports that the deportation of the two - detained without charge in Egypt for more than eight years - was imminent.

Eritrean advocacy groups say the two fled indefinite military conscription, which is mandatory for most young Eritreans.

Amnesty said their deportation would be a "grave" breach of international law.

They should be released and given "immediate access to asylum procedures", it added.

The Egyptian authorities have not yet commented.

Over the last two decades, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans have fled the country and many have died trying to cross the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

The Eritrean government is accused of human rights violations, including forced conscription, religious persecution, and political repression, which it denies.

In 2018 an Eritrean migrant, who was deported from the US, took his life at the airport in Cairo, while on the way to Eritrea.