IHT/DSE: Brotherhood members face official obstacles

Pakinam Amer
First Published: June 23, 2006

Crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood results in arrests and harassment

CAIRO: In what was probably a first, according to Muslim Brotherhood sources, Qena and Assiut’s education departments banned five teachers affiliated with the banned group from correcting thanawiyya amma (secondary school) final examinations.
“It is an odd behavior that only speaks of the mentality of those who rule Egypt,” read a Muslim Brotherhood statement issued Thursday. According to the statement, one teacher Ibrahim Abul-Shabab, previously appointed to the assessment and inspection committee, was held back at the committee’s door and denied the examination papers. The head of the committee reportedly told the physics teacher that he had been “banned from correcting the exams for security reasons.”
The incident comes in the wake of a series of crackdowns on Muslim Brotherhood activity. On Tuesday, 31 Alexandria activists were arrested; their sudden detention was extended to 15 days and they were charged with membership in a banned group.
On Thursday, Egypt’s prosecution extended the detention of another of the group’s activists for 15 days, after they had previously refused questioning as a form of protest.
Around 700 members remain in custody, some 134 of them are facing charges including protesting and gathering without prior permission from state security, insulting the president and distributing anti-government leaflets, according to the banned group.
“The arrests of hundreds of Brotherhood leaders and cadres show the true face of this regime,” Mohammad Mahdi Akef, supreme guide of the group, said in a press statement Thursday. “The regime’s conduct, extending Emergency Laws, postponing elections of localities and abusing judges and as such shows that it has no intention for reform, that reform that they brag, that they hold on to in every international and local convention.”
“It also shows that the regime is paving the way for inheritance of power,” added Akef.
Some of the current detainees, held in Tora Mazraa and Wadi Al-Natroun prisons, were arrested as they protested the prosecution of two judges of the cassation court who had received disciplinary hearings for outlining fraud in last year’s presidential elections. Following a strong wave of protests in solidarity with the judges, the Interior Minister issued a decision banning all public gatherings, even peaceful ones, deeming demonstrating without permission a crime that is punishable by law.
Others were detained for supporting Muslim Brotherhood leader, Hassan Al-Hayawan, who was charged with membership in a banned group, public disturbance and carrying an unlicensed weapon. As the leader, who was later proven innocent in court, was being tried, hundreds of Brotherhood supporters staged a protest in front of the Sharqiya courthouse. According to Ikhwan Online, the official online news source for the group, truckloads of security blockaded roads leading to the court, surrounding demonstrators and dispersing them violently using truncheons, rubber bullets and tear-gas. According to the Web site, more than 10 Muslim Brotherhood leaders were wounded.
Among those currently detained are Brotherhood leaders Essam Al-Arian and Mohammad Morsi, the latter was rounded up, along with a group of researchers, as they convened in the Umma (Nation) Center for Research and Development. Security reportedly stormed into the center, fully armed and arrested everyone on the spot during what the Interior Ministry called "a secret organizational meeting of Brotherhood cadres.” This week, Al-Hayawan was re-arrested and detained despite a pardon issued by the court.
The Muslim Brotherhood bloc in parliament condemned the arrests, saying that they are “a negative indication that the Egyptian authorities [are intolerable] of freedom of expression.”
“Such irresponsible and illegal acts from the Egyptian security authorities lead to anger and oppression among the Egyptian society,” Mahmoud Ezzat, secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood, had said in response to what the Brotherhood had described as “groundless” and “arbitrary detentions.”
“How can anyone who believes in helping or doing an effort for the country feel safe after such acts?”

Link: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1990