Egypt braces for more dissent

2005-03-29 18:32

Cairo - The Egyptian authorities, increasingly rattled by pro-reform protests, braced on Tuesday for more demonstrations from opposition groups ahead of landmark elections.

After hundreds of supporters of the prohibited Muslim Brotherhood movement demonstrated on Sunday in defiance of a government ban, another opposition group called for a march in front of parliament on Wednesday.

"Besides asking for a parliamentary republic, we will also march in support of civil liberties and freedom of expression," said the leader of Kefaya (enough) - a coalition group of leftists, liberals and Islamists.

Noting the "growing nervousness of authorities in the face of mounting political dissent," George Isaac said he was "shocked by police repression on Sunday," during the Brotherhood's rally.

Police deployed en masse on Sunday to prevent the Brotherhood's supporters from reaching parliament where the demonstration was originally set to take place.

Positioned in compact squares, helmeted, shield-carrying and club-wielding forces managed to prevent any advances by the protestors.

A few hundred marchers, asking for constitutional reforms and the lifting of restrictive emergency laws, managed to gather on the central Ramses square, a kilometre away from parliament, and in two other spots.

Fifty were arrested for having overlooked the government's demonstration ban, authorities said.

Officially banned

Street demonstrations are forbidden in Egypt thanks to emergency laws that have been in place since president Anwar al-Sadat's assassination in 1981.

Another 50 Brotherhood members had already been nabbed by security forces ahead of the demonstration on Saturday.

High-ranking members of the organisation were among those arrested in five districts in and around Cairo.

Sixteen of those arrested at the weekend were released and 23 placed in preventive detention for a fortnight, Brotherhood second-in-command Mohammed Habib told AFP on Monday.

Judicial sources named the charges as "membership of a banned organization, participation in illegal demonstrations and incitement to hatred of the regime".

The Brotherhood was officially banned in 1954 over its violent anti-government activities. It has a dozen MPs sitting in parliament as "independents."

According to some commentators, the group could however win as many as 20% of parliament's 454 seats in a fair election.

Isaac said the Brotherhood would be "symbolically represented" at Wednesday's demonstration.

"We won't demonstrate for amendments to the current constitution but for the establishment of a parliamentary system to replace today's presidential regime," Isaac also said.

- AFP