Jailan Halawi reviews the implications of Monday's decision to release 48 student members of the Muslim Brotherhood Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud on Monday ordered the release of 48 Al-Azhar students, detained on 14 December following their participation in a para-military parade on the campus of Al-Azhar University. Mahmoud said the release had been ordered so as not to compromise the academic future of the students. The demonstration, organised on 10 December by student members of the Muslim Brotherhood, also resulted in the detention of a number of the group's senior figures, including the deputy supreme guide, multi-millionaire businessman Khayrat El-Shater. Despite MB officials' claims that the parade was an "athletic" display it provoked the ire of the regime. Pro-government media launched a fierce campaign, accusing the MB of reviving its military wing. Mohamed Habib, deputy MB supreme guide, welcomed the prosecutor-general's decision to release the students. He said he was concerned, however, over the fate of other students who remain under provisional detention. While the Criminal Court ordered their immediate release the Interior Ministry immediately issued another arrest warrant. Habib said he hoped Monday's decision was only "a curtain raiser", and that the cases against MB leaders, some of whom have been referred to a military tribunal and had their assets frozen, would be similarly overturned. The detention of El-Shater and close to 200 students is the latest round of the crackdown on the group that began last spring after the MB expressed its support for judges campaigning for greater judicial independence. Since then, the MB says, security forces have arrested almost 800 members, most without charge. On 28 January Mahmoud ordered El-Shater's assets, together with those of 28 other MB members, be frozen. They face charges of money laundering, financing the activities of a prohibited group and attempting to revive its para- military wing. A day later a Cairo Criminal court judge dismissed all charges against El-Shater and his co-defendants and ordered their immediate release. The order was ignored by the Ministry of Interior which made use of the emergency law in force since 1981 to issue new arrest warrants. Tensions between the MB and the regime grew when Mohamed Mahdi Akef, the group's supreme guide, announced it was seeking to establish a political party to counter constitutional amendments which, many commentators argue, have been framed so as to exclude MB members from participating in elections, including those for the Shura Council, scheduled in April. In response, President Hosni Mubarak denounced the MB as "a threat to national security" in a press interview. A few days later the Minister of Interior Habib El-Adli was quoted in an interview voicing the same opinion. On 6 February Mubarak, in his capacity as commander of the armed forces, transferred the cases of El-Shater and 39 others to a military tribunal, and pro-government newspapers announced the trial would bring new evidence to light of money laundering as well as documentary evidence confirming the group has not renounced violence. It is the sixth time in the Muslim Brotherhood's history that members have been referred to a military tribunal. The last time was in 2001. Dozens of the group's leading members then received prison terms after being found guilty of belonging to a banned organisation and seeking to establish an Islamic Caliphate. Political analysts believe the latest crackdown aims to compromise the group's operational capability and sidetrack what is currently the regime's most obstinate and effective opposition. It is the latest act in the ongoing drama of ambivalent relations between the group, founded in 1928 by Hassan El-Banna and officially banned since 1954 though it won a fifth of parliamentary seats in the 2005 elections with members running as independents. The attitude of the regime has for decades oscillated between confrontation and accommodation. Human rights activists have denounced the referral to a military court of Brotherhood members as a misuse of the draconian emergency law in force since the 1981 assassination of president Anwar El-Sadat. Last April the emergency law was extended for two years following bomb attacks at the Red Sea resort of Dahab which left scores of Egyptians and tourists dead. The Cairo-based Arab Centre for Judicial Independence said it deplores the trial of civilians in military courts. The practice, it said in a statement, "represents a failure to live up to international agreements signed by Egypt guaranteeing citizens a fair and even-handed trial". On 15 February, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said Egypt should release the hundreds of members of the Muslim Brotherhood detained "solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association". "This escalation in the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has worrying implications for anyone who peacefully campaigns for change," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch's Middle East director. As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Egypt must ensure that anyone charged with a criminal offence has the right to a fair trial. Article 14 of the ICCPR requires "a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law," and the right to appeal any conviction and sentence before a higher tribunal. In Egypt, military courts judgments cannot be appealed, denying defendants full due-process rights. Once convicted, the only recourse left to the defendant is to plea for clemency to the president of the republic in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the army. On the same day HRW issued its statement 81 MB members were arrested. A day later the state security prosecutor ordered they be remanded in custody for 15 days pending further investigation. Further arrests of four MB businessmen in the Menoufiya Governorate, north of Cairo, were conducted on 20 April. On 17 February 40 MB members appealed against their referral to a military tribunal, describing the trial as "unconstitutional" and claiming such courts lack fairness. While the fierce security clampdown may have dealt a blow to the MB's structural hierarchy and disturbed its finances, observers agree it has singularly failed to tarnish the group's image with the public. If anything, said one respected political commentator, "it has earned it more support".
