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Cairo: New arrests on Wednesday of 100 senior members and potential election candidates from the banned Muslim Brotherhood have not dissuaded Egypt's largest opposition movement from running in the upcoming local elections, the group's leader said.
The arrests were the latest in an ongoing crackdown by the authorities on the group. An Egyptian security official said troops stormed the homes of senior Brotherhood members in six Egyptian provinces, including Cairo, at dawn. The detained were arrested on charges of joining a banned group in an attempt to revive its activities, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
"They arrested every single person who seemed to them to be a potential candidate," said Mohammad Mahdi Akef, the Brotherhood leader.
Political detentions
The Brotherhood posted the names of the arrested on its website, saying the detentions sought to prevent the group from running in the April 8 local council elections.
Not long after the arrests were reported, the website then announced that the manager of its English-language site, Khalid Hamza, had also been arrested Wednesday, following a meeting with the representative of the Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights.
The site suggested that he was detained because of his role in publicising the arrests and military trials of Brotherhood members to the rest of the world.
Akef said the Brotherhood will participate in the election despite the crackdown.
"It's an obligation from God to serve the people."
"These are political detentions aimed at influencing the group's decision to participate in the elections. They are arresting 'popular symbols' of the group in each province," senior Brotherhood member Essam Al Erian said.
Wednesday's arrests bring to over 600 the number of Muslim Brotherhood members detained since the beginning of the year.
On Monday, police detained 13 university students affiliated with the Brotherhood in the coastal city of Alexandria as they collected money at the campus for the Brotherhood and to help Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The students were charged with belonging to a banned group and collecting money without permission. On Sunday, police rounded up 51 members of the group across three provinces in Egypt.
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