CAIRO: Prominent Egyptian journalist and human rights advocate Hossam Bahgat was released Tuesday, his lawyer said, two days after being detained over a report he wrote on a trial of former army officers.

Bahgat was summoned Sunday over charges of publishing false information in an October report about 26 officers he said had been convicted by a military court of plotting a coup, security sources said.

After being questioned, Bahgat was arrested and transferred to the military prosecutor, sources said.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Egypt to release Bahgat Tuesday and called for the country to end what it called its harsh treatment of journalists.

Human rights groups accuse President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who as military chief deposed a freely elected Islamist president in 2013, of exploiting security threats to roll back political freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak.

Bahgat founded the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an independent human rights organization. Nearly three weeks ago he wrote about the military trial for the online news site Mada Masr.