CAIRO, May 10 (Aswawt Masriya) – Egyptian prosecutors decided Tuesday to extend for 15 days the detention of five members of a satirical group that filmed selfie-style videos poking fun at the president and his supporters, a Ministry of Interior source told Aswat Masriya.

The prosecution accused the group members of using the Internet to promote terrorist ideologies and inciting protests with the aim of committing acts of violence against state institutions, the source added.

Earlier on Tuesday, an appeals court upheld a decision to release the sixth member of the group, Ezzeddin Khaled Mohamed. He was the first of them to be arrested, on Saturday, for “insulting the president and state institutions” after the group published a video on their Facebook page on Thursday poking fun at the President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his supporters. 

Prosecutors ordered Mohamed’s detention for four days pending investigation, then a judge ordered his release. But the prosecution subsequently appealed the decision to release him.

The remaining five of the group’s members were arrested late Monday and they are now under investigation.

Aftal al-Shawarei (Arabic for street children) describe themselves on their now-deactivated Facebook page as “youth who work at the theatre.”

“We have decided to film our videos in the streets with crazy ideas. You will find us everywhere around you. Even if your day is busy and swamped, the street is full of laughter.”

The video that may have caused their arrest features the group mocking President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his supporters and sarcastically asking journalists to “behave” in reference to a row that has raged between the Press Syndicate and the Ministry of Interior in the past week following a police raid of the syndicate’s building.

The arrest of the band members was widely criticised among social media users.

"Republic of fear"

Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef  criticised the arrest of “kids for doing YouTube videos”.

Addressing President Sisi, he said, “You are arresting kids for doing YouTube videos, one of them wasn’t enough; no you took them all. You really are not scared.” Sisi recently said in a speech, “I don’t get scared.”

Political scienist Amr Hamzawy also commented on the arrest in a Tweet saying that in “the republic of fear the citizen is not but a source of noise that deserves gagging”.

In the past weeks, Sisi has come under an unprecedented wave of criticism, especially amid anger from the journalists' union at the interior ministry - and also after Sisi decided in April to transfer control over two strategic Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. Critics have accused Sisi of “selling Egyptian land” in return for Saudi aid and took to the streets in rare protests on April 15 and April 25.

On their part, Egyptian authorities launched a campaign of mass arrests targeting youth who took part in the protests. 

Sisi was elected president with a sweeping majority in 2014 after he led a military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013 following mass protests against Mursi’s rule. Sisi was the country’s defence minister under Mursi. 

Since Mursi's ouster, Egyptian authorities have launched a crackdown on critics and imposed restrictions on street demonstrations. The U.S.-based watchdog Human Rights Watch says Egypt “remains in a human rights crisis” under Sisi.