CAIRO: The State Security Prosecution has coined a new set of charges against Muslim Brotherhood leaders detained earlier this week and remanded in custody for another 15 days. The new accusations allege that the detained Deputy Supreme Guide of the group Mahmoud Ezzat, is in fact the actual Supreme Guide of the International Muslim Brotherhood movement, a position for which he was chosen last month. Analysts have described the recent crackdown as a way to stem Egypt's most popular opposition group's political appeal. "These are charges that have no legal meaning.if Ezzat is the secret Supreme Guide, does this mean that the public one [recently elected Mohamed Badea'] is not official? said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic movements at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "There has been a general consensus that the detention of the Brotherhood's senior officials is a way to pressure the group in a year of parliamentary elections, explained Rashwan. Ezzat and members of the Guidance Office Essam El-Erian and Abdul-Rahman Al-Barr are accused of setting up a body aligned with the thinking of former Brotherhood member, Sayyed Qotb, who was executed in the 1960s and whose ideas have inspired militants. They are facing charges of forming training camps to launch attacks to overthrow the political regime with the belief that violence is the way to change the current leadership in Egypt. Last Monday, state security arrested 15 prominent MB leaders including Ezzat, El-Erian, Al-Barr and other senior members of the group nation-wide. In an official statement on Wednesday night, the Muslim Brotherhood commented on the latest detentions saying, "They [the members] were arrested having done nothing except call for reform and freedom and for adopting a moderate approach, which Egypt needs the most at this time. The group asserted that "these arrests would not change the path they have chosen for the progress of the nation and they will continue their struggle with all available peaceful means to promote freedom and to fight corruption and tyranny. They have also questioned whether there is a relationship between the arrests and the group's plans to make public appeals for solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and "the besieged people of Gaza, as well as the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. Hussein Ibrahim, head of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc at the People's Assembly described the charges against Ezzat as being the undercover Supreme Guide as "hilarious. "We are a peaceful group that operates in the public eye and there is nothing such as the official Supreme Guide and the undercover one; this all shows how State Security has fabricated the charges and they didn't even do it wisely, he explained. "If this wasn't obvious to everyone then international organizations and human rights activists wouldn't have reacted this way, condemning the arrests and calling on the government to release them, Ibrahim said. Hafez Abu Saeda, secretary general of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, called on the government to release the Muslim Brotherhood members and all other political detainees, "lifting the state of emergency, which is incompatible with claims of a reform process and to return to constitutional legality and natural law, he said in a press statement. "The state of emergency is the legal instrument that is being used to violate the right to peaceful assembly, the right to liberty and security and other rights which were guaranteed under the Egyptian Constitution and international covenants on human rights, he added. Amnesty International has also called on Egyptian authorities to "stop their crackdown on peaceful political dissent and uphold the rights to freedoms of expression, association and assembly in Egypt. Meanwhile, a Suez Criminal Court has ordered the release of 25 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Suez after spending more than three months in prison charged with belonging to a banned group. "It's a good step but it came very late, Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Meniem Abdel Maqsoud said according to press reports, adding that their detention was unconstitutional to begin with.
