Egypt Islamists say over 600 arrested in election campaign

By Samer al-Atrush (AFP)

CAIRO — Egyptian police have rounded up about 600 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of this month's parliamentary election and some 250 are still detained, a senior Brotherhood official said on Tuesday.

Mohammed Mursi told AFP that the crackdown on members of the opposition Islamist group began when the Brotherhood announced on October 9 plans to field candidates for the November 28 legislative polls.

"Arrests are still being made. Someone goes out to campaign, he gets harassed and arrested and then released in a few days," said Mursi, a member of the Brotherhood's politburo who heads the group's election campaign.

"About 600 have been arrested since we announced that we would run in the election. About 250 remain in jail," he said.

The group said on its website that more than 70 Islamists were arrested across the country over the past few days, including about 50 who were detained overnight in the southern Bani Suef province after clashing with police.

Security officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Police regularly say they arrest Brotherhood members for belonging to an illegal organization.

The group, which registers its candidates as independents to skirt a ban on religious parties, won a fifth of parliament's seats in the last election in 2005.

The Brotherhood is fielding about 135 candidates in this month's election, but the number remains uncertain as some candidates are contesting the election committee's decision to bar them from running, Mursi said.

The ruling National Democratic Party is running about 800 candidates, and the liberal Wafd opposition party about 250 for the 508 seats up for election.

Dozens of independents, many of them NDP would-be nominees who were not endorsed by the party, are also standing for election.

The official press reported on Tuesday that the election committee has approved 5,181 candidates for the election out of roughly 5,700 who applied.

The US State Department on Monday called on Egypt to hold fair elections and allow international observers to monitor the vote, something Cairo rejects as interference in its affairs.

The government said it will allow local groups to send observers to polling stations.

The Forum of Independent Human Rights Organizations, a coalition of Egyptian rights groups, said last week that the election has already been compromised by arrests of opposition members and a media crackdown.

Bahieddine Hassan, director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, said there was a climate of "terror" in the media after the dismissal of an opposition newspaper editor and the suspension of several satellite stations.

"It is a farce rather than a legislative election," he said.

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