On Aug. 14, 2013, Egyptian security forces forcibly dispersed two major sit-in camps in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawaya Square and Giza’s Nahda Square.

The two camps had been set up some six weeks earlier, after Mohamed Morsi -- Egypt’s first freely-elected president and a Muslim Brotherhood leader -- had been ousted in a bloody military coup.

Estimates of the number of people killed in the sit-in dispersals range from the hundreds to the thousands.

In a Tuesday statement, the Interior Ministry said six of the 13 people arrested were members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood who had been holding a secret meeting in Giza. 

The remaining seven were detained in Egypt’s northern Beheira province, the ministry said without providing a reason for their arrest. 

“We received information that they had been planning to hold meetings… with the aim of provoking citizens to mark the fifth anniversary [of the sit-in dispersal] by staging demonstrations and sowing chaos,” the ministry statement read. 

After Morsi’s ouster and imprisonment five years ago, Egypt’s post-coup authorities launched a relentless crackdown on dissent, killing hundreds and throwing thousands behind bars on violence-related charges. 

Last month, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, a former army chief who led the 2013 coup, ruled out the notion of reconciling with the Brotherhood, accusing the group of engaging in “terrorism”.