2010-02-08
New clamp down on Egypt's biggest opposition movement includes group's deputy chief.
CAIRO - Egyptian authorities swooped on the country's biggest and most powerful opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, before dawn on Monday, arresting 13 members including the group's deputy chief and two other leaders, the movement said.
Brotherhood deputy chief Mahmud Ezzat was arrest along with senior members Essam Erian and Abdel Rahman el-Berr, the group's lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksud said in a statement posted on the website.
The attorney, citing initial reports, said that 10 other Brotherhood members were also arrested in raids across Egypt, including in the coastal city of Alexandria, the southern province of Asyut and the Nile Delta.
Maksud said he expected the number of arrests to increase.
"This campaign of arrests is unjustified and we expect that more people have been arrested as Brotherhood lawyers are still receiving the names of those detained from the various provinces," the lawyer said.
A security official, who declined to be named, confirmed the arrests in a terse statement saying those rounded up "are accused of membership in an outlawed group."
The arrests were the first since Mohammed Badie was chosen as the group's new head in mid-January.
Brotherhood members said that the latest wave of arrests is aimed at undermining participation by the group ahead of legislative elections later this year.
Egypt is due to elect parliament's upper house, or Shura Council, in April while elections for the lower house are expected to take place sometime in the fall.
"The regime wants to obstruct the Brotherhood's participation in the next elections," Hamdi Hasan, the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc spokesman said.
Analyst Hossam Tammam, an expert on the Brotherhood, echoed his words, saying the authorities were seeking "to abort any serious effort by the Brotherhood to run in the Shura Council elections which are considered a test for the parliamentary polls."
The group is officially banned but is left to operate relatively openly though its members are subject to periodic crackdowns.
The party nonetheless holds a fifth of the seats in parliament after fielding candidates in 2005 elections as independents to get round the ban.
Since then, a fierce government crackdown has left many prominent members behind bars. The group says the crackdown is aimed at distancing them from political life.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37080.
New clamp down on Egypt's biggest opposition movement includes group's deputy chief.
CAIRO - Egyptian authorities swooped on the country's biggest and most powerful opposition movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, before dawn on Monday, arresting 13 members including the group's deputy chief and two other leaders, the movement said.
Brotherhood deputy chief Mahmud Ezzat was arrest along with senior members Essam Erian and Abdel Rahman el-Berr, the group's lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksud said in a statement posted on the website.
The attorney, citing initial reports, said that 10 other Brotherhood members were also arrested in raids across Egypt, including in the coastal city of Alexandria, the southern province of Asyut and the Nile Delta.
Maksud said he expected the number of arrests to increase.
"This campaign of arrests is unjustified and we expect that more people have been arrested as Brotherhood lawyers are still receiving the names of those detained from the various provinces," the lawyer said.
A security official, who declined to be named, confirmed the arrests in a terse statement saying those rounded up "are accused of membership in an outlawed group."
The arrests were the first since Mohammed Badie was chosen as the group's new head in mid-January.
Brotherhood members said that the latest wave of arrests is aimed at undermining participation by the group ahead of legislative elections later this year.
Egypt is due to elect parliament's upper house, or Shura Council, in April while elections for the lower house are expected to take place sometime in the fall.
"The regime wants to obstruct the Brotherhood's participation in the next elections," Hamdi Hasan, the Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc spokesman said.
Analyst Hossam Tammam, an expert on the Brotherhood, echoed his words, saying the authorities were seeking "to abort any serious effort by the Brotherhood to run in the Shura Council elections which are considered a test for the parliamentary polls."
The group is officially banned but is left to operate relatively openly though its members are subject to periodic crackdowns.
The party nonetheless holds a fifth of the seats in parliament after fielding candidates in 2005 elections as independents to get round the ban.
Since then, a fierce government crackdown has left many prominent members behind bars. The group says the crackdown is aimed at distancing them from political life.
Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37080.
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