Brotherhood members held
2006-03-08 20:04
Cairo - Egyptian police detained four more members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday and a senior member of the Islamic group said the authorities had closed down a weekly newspaper, which published its views.
Deputy leader Mohamed Habib said the detentions were part of a crackdown designed to stop demands for political reform and restore the status quo, which existed before last year's period of relatively open political activity.
Since the crackdown began on Friday, the police had picked up 26 members of the organisation, including a member of its 13-member Guidance Office, which acted as executive committee.
Habib said that on Tuesday the Supreme Press Council withdrew the licence of the weekly Afaq Arabia (Arab Horizons), which was licensed to the small Liberal Party, but which gave much space to writers from the Brotherhood.
Political reform
The council based its decision on the fact that there was a leadership dispute within the Liberal Party, he added.
He said: "All of this is in the context of stopping demands for political reform and going back to before 2005."
The Muslim Brotherhood was the largest opposition group in the country, with 88 of the 454 seats in parliament after elections in November and December last year.
But, the government refused to let the movement form a legal political party and membership of the movement was against the law, enabling the police to detain members at will.
The Brotherhood's website, ikhwanonline.org, linked the crackdown to a visit to Egypt by United States secretary of state Condoleezza Rice last month.
It said: "She dictated her conditions to the regime to persecute the Brothers and especially its media outlets, including Afaq Arabia."