CAIRO: Egypt’s military on Tuesday freed prominent rights defender and reporter Hossam Bahgat, a day after his detention sparked calls for his release from the UN, a rights activist told AFP.

“He called me and said he’s been released from the military intelligence building,” said Gasser Abdel-Razek, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative For Personal Rights group that Bahgat founded. The rights group later posted a picture on Twitter of Bahgat in its office after his release.

Bahgat, 36, had been summoned by the military on Sunday for questioning over an investigative report on a military trial. He was held overnight and then military prosecutors remanded him in custody for four days.

Bahgat’s detention drew swift attention owing to his longstanding work as one of the country’s top human rights defenders, as well as his more recent investigative pieces for independent news site Mada Masr.

The spokesman for the UN High Commissioner For Human Rights had earlier urged Egyptian authorities “to release Mr. Bahgat without delay.”

“The case of Hossam Bahgat, the latest in a long line of arrests and imprisonment of independent journalists in Egypt, is disturbing on a number of fronts,” spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was “concerned” about Bahgat’s detention, his spokesman wrote on his Twitter account, drawing an angry rebuke from Egypt’s Foreign Ministry.

Egypt “denounces” the comment, the ministry said in a statement. “It would have been more in accordance with the professional responsibility of the secretary general to exercise accuracy and concern for general cases relating to collective violations against people denied basic rights,” the statement said.