CAIRO: Mass arrests targeting Muslim Brotherhood members coupled with the renewal of the Emergency Laws have left Brotherhood leaders angry and speculating on a "conspiracy against Islamists in general and the Brotherhood in particular. "All hopes for reform have totally vanished, declare Muslim Brotherhood leaders on their official Web site, with spokesman Essam Al-Arian vocal in his criticism of the Emergency Laws and the government. "No one understands why the arrests are taking place. It's a right outlined for the state, so it is constantly used, adds El-Erian. The 25-year-old Emergency Law was extended two more years or "until anti-terrorism measures are passed and enacted, according to Egypt's upper house, a stipulation giving the state the right to renew the law beyond the two-year period suggested by President Hosni Mubarak. The law has been in force since the assassination of former President Anwar El-Sadat, and has been renewed every three years since. Last Friday, police arrested 18 members of the Muslim Brotherhood for marching in the Judges Club's demonstrations in support of two judges who were disciplined for criticizing last year's presidential elections. Early this week, at least a dozen members were also rounded-up for allegedly distributing leaflets and hanging up wall posters condemning the state of emergency. The members, still being held in custody, were accused of "affiliation with a banned group. The Muslim Brotherhood is officially banned but has been tolerated recently, with hundreds of members actively engaging in politics and 88 Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated seats in Egypt's parliament, allowing them to form an opposition bloc and informally appoint a spokesperson. Under the Emergency Law, however, in the past few years such mass arrests have generally been random and prior permissiveness has not meant protection from arrest. The Emergency Law guarantees the police's right to hold detainees for up to six months without trial, with the possibility of renewal. Ill-treatment and illegal interrogation of those arrested in the absence of lawyers has been widely reported. Those detained under the Emergency Law have included journalists, Islamic activists, those suspected of crimes and even homeless children. International human rights group Amnesty International once reported a case in an article entitled "Stories of Torture in the 21st Century, where an active member of a Palestinian sympathizer group was tortured, electrocuted and, according to the report, "blindfolded, stripped to his underwear and surrounded by four officers who punched and kicked him . a dirty sock was placed in his mouth and bottles of freezing water [were] poured over him. One 2003 case, famous among the Muslim Brotherhood community in Egypt and reported by their official Web site as well as by several rights groups, involved a Brotherhood member named Mossad Kutb, who was allegedly tortured to death while in custody. Both a briefing paper done by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) and the U.S. Department of State's Egypt report for the year 2003 documented his case. According to EOHR, Kutb was arrested by state police and kept in custody for five days "until he died of torture. The Emergency Law has also given the police the right to carry out unjustified detentions, even in the presence of a court ruling decreeing the detainee's innocence. Under the law, people have been detained for crimes for which a court has already acquitted them. In some cases, as in the case of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya's Aboud and Tarek El-Zommor, a court ruling is not sufficient to obtain release; instead, the interior minister's pardon is necessary. "Despite statements and several promises by President Mubarak during his election campaign, the political reality totally contradicts the presidential vows and statements, says Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Ali in a column published on the group's official Web site. "The number of political detainees according to the human rights organizations reaches more than 16,000. Detentions are continuous and the interior minister, [despite] this number, denies that there is something called 'political prisoners'. Ali went on, saying "The Emergency Law is only supposed to prevail in times of wars, disasters or exceptional conditions. [However], the interior minister s authorities given to him by the military ruler restrict the political parties and ban peaceful power rotation by imposing restrictions on the political party's activities. According to Voice of America News, in response to recent events, "U.S. officials have indicated that Washington is displeased by the lack of progress in Egypt toward more democracy.
