Abbas’s lawyer Gamal Eid said in a tweet that the award-winning journalist and rights activist was arrested early on Wednesday and his whereabouts are unknown.
An Interior Ministry official said he was checking the news while two security sources, who asked not to be named, confirmed the detention of Abbas, without providing details on the reasons.
The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said that armed police raided Abbas's home at dawn, without showing an arrest warrant.
The statement added that the activist was then blind-folded and taken in his pyjamas to an unknown location.
Eid said on his Twitter account that Abbas had been "kidnapped, not arrested."
Abbas first became known in activist circles after posting videos showing torture practices by the Egyptian police under Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak. Abbas won International Center for Journalists' Knight International Journalism Award in 2007.
