The Egyptian Salafist group Ahrar on Wednesday threatened to besiege the headquarters of the Lebanese embassy in Cairo should Lebanese authorities fail to “lift the siege imposed on Sheikh (Ahmed) al-Asir and his companions.”

The group claimed that Asir and his supporters were being harassed “due to their heroic stances in supporting the Syrian revolution.”

A legal body representing Islamist President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday filed an appeal against a court ruling cancelling Egypt's controversial parliamentary polls, judicial sources said.

The Egyptian State Lawsuit Authority (ESLA) filed the suit on behalf of the president and the Supreme Administrative Court will examine the case on Sunday, one source said.

Egyptian security services have banned a film about the Jews of Egypt on the eve of its scheduled release, the director told Agence France Presse on Tuesday.

"The film was banned by National Security," Amr Ramses said by telephone from New York.

Fifty-five Egyptian Christians arrested last month in Libya for allegedly seeking to convert Muslims have been freed, while four others are still behind bars, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

"Our embassy has been assured of the release of 55 people and is actively working to seek the release of four others who are still in detention," deputy spokesman Nazih al-Naggary told Agence France Presse.

The International Monetary Fund said Monday that it could provide an emergency short-term loan to Egypt if needed, as talks for a longer-term $4.8 billion financing program have bogged down.

But the global crisis lender said that even for a loan from its Rapid Financing Instrument program, Cairo has to show its commitment to a broader reform plan.

An Egyptian Christian jailed in Libya has been tortured to death in custody, an Egyptian human rights lawyer told Agence France Presse in Cairo on Monday, with demonstrators attacking the Libyan embassy in protest.

Ezzat Hakim Attallah "died after being tortured with other detainees" in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, said Naguib Guebrayel, a Coptic Christian lawyer who heads the Egyptian Union for Human Rights watchdog.

Toppled president Hosni Mubarak, awaiting trial over his role in the deaths of protesters, believes Egyptians should rally around his Islamist successor and end violent protests, his lawyer told Agence France Presse on Monday.

President Mohamed Morsi, twice jailed by Mubarak before he himself was overthrown on February 11, 2011, is the "elected president, people should rally around him," the former strongman told his lawyer Farid Deeb.

How important were Twitter, Facebook and other social media in toppling regimes in the Arab Spring uprisings?

Amid a fierce debate in academic circles, an upcoming book argues that social media and new technology made a key difference in successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and helped foster grassroots movements in other Arab nations.

Discontent in Egypt's police ranks has boiled over into an unprecedented strike, with officers saying they will refuse orders until they are no longer used as political pawns, adding to the problems of President Mohamed Morsi.

Accused of excessive use of force by the opponents of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, police officers say they feel despised by the people when they are simply following orders -- and they will not take any more.

Egypt's interior minister pleaded on Sunday for an end to "rumors" of police abuse, saying his forces had never fired a single shot at protesters since the start of the 2011 uprising.

Mohammed Ibrahim, who is facing an unprecedented strike by thousands of police officers across the country calling for his resignation, told reporters the media was waging an attack against the ministry and spreading lies.