Cairo  - Police have detained a third pro-Palestinian blogger in Egypt, a source close to Egypt's Interior Ministry confirmed on Tuesday.

The security source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, on Tuesday told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that police took Dia al-Din Gad from his home in Egypt's Gharbiya province, northwest of Cairo, on Friday.

Gad was often sharply critical of the Egyptian government's policy with regard to Gaza on his blog, An Angry Voice, in the past. He became especially outspoken during Israel's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"Bloggers have become a major target of the police authorities in Egypt, and all these assaults are committed outside the law or under the cloak of the state of emergency," the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said in a statement released Monday night.

Egypt's emergency law, in place without interruption since 1981, allows authorities to detain people without charge.

Late on Friday night, officers from Egypt's domestic intelligence agency, State Security Investigations, also detained Philip Rizk, a German-Egyptian graduate student, blogger, and film-maker after he completed a symbolic march in Egypt's Qalubiya province north of Cairo to protest the blockade of Gaza.

Lawyers on the case on Tuesday told dpa that they still had received no reliable word as to his location or any charges against him.

State Security officers surrounded and searched Rizk's family home before dawn on Monday morning, Rizk's sister, Jeannette, told dpa.

They took computer and video equipment, books, and papers, Gamal Eid, head of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, said.

Both said that a representative from the German Embassy was present during the search. However, a spokesman from the embassy on Monday told dpa that he could not comment on the case.

Last Tuesday, a Cairo administrative court postponed hearing a complaint against the Interior Ministry alleging that a third blogger, Mohammed Adil, had been detained illegally in November for traveling to Gaza in January 2008.

Prosecutors issued a formal arrest warrant for Adil on November 24, four days after his arrest.

Adil is charged with belonging to a banned group, a probable reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, and crossing into Gaza illegally.

The Muslim Brotherhood, though banned, is Egypt's largest opposition bloc in parliament by virtue of the sheer number of independent candidates affiliated with the group.

During Israel's 22-day offensive in Gaza, which began on December 27, protests erupted at Egyptian embassies around the region calling on Egypt to open its border with Gaza at Rafah. (dpa)