Egypt has arrested Al Jazeera reporter Huweida Taha Metwalli in a human rights scandal that just gets worse and worse.

Last year police raped a male prisoner by inserting a stick inside him. To make it even worse, the abusers filmed the whole thing. Inevitably, the video found its way to the internet AFTER he had been released.

The Egyptian authorities went mad, and blamed the prisoner. He was arrested again for "resisting authority" (apparently, he didn't smile while he was being raped).

And now Al Jazeera are making a documentary about the whole thing.

Egypt has 20,000 political prisoners. Syria has 600. Neither of those numbers is a good situation to be in, but it's just a little reminder when you label states as 'moderate'.

Keep up to date with this story at the excellent The Arabist blog.