CAIRO: At dawn on Monday security forces arrested 65 members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Sharqeya, Kafr El-Sheikh, Sohag, Gharbeya, Giza, Qena, and Menufiya, said a Brotherhood press statement. The police official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, confirmed Monday's arrests. He said the detainees were engaged in illegal recruiting activities among the students and workers ahead of the elections. Among the detained members were Saber Al-Sharkawy, the brotherhood's Sharqeya office manager and deputy of an Al-Azhar academic institute there; Gharib Ali Ramadan, a mosque preacher; Essam Gamal Adam, secretary of MP Mohamed Mohamed Abdel Rahman; and Mahmoud Ahmed Shalaby, secretary of MP Hisham Al-Kady, both affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The list of detainees made available to Daily News Egypt by Brotherhood sources also included the names of doctors, teachers and accountants. A few days prior to the latest sweep, Brotherhood MP Aly Laban had complained to the People's Assembly that a police officer threatened to arrest his office manager if Laban ran in the upcoming local council elections. According to Gamal Eid, chairman of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, the government's treatment of the MB is full of contradictions. "On the one hand, the government says that the Muslim Brotherhood is an illegal group, and hence arrests its members, while on the other hand, it allows them to run for parliamentary seats as independents. The most recent crackdown is not the first of its kind. Security officials have arrested more than 400 members of the group, according to Muslim Brotherhood lawyer Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud, who was not surprised at the news. He had told Daily News Egypt two weeks ago that he expected the arrests to continue in the run up to local council elections set to take place on April 8, in which the group plans to field candidates. Abdel Maqsoud further stated that the group expected the votes to be rigged during the municipal elections, citing changes to the Egyptian constitution last March that altered the election monitoring system. The new system delegates the monitoring to a government-appointed higher electoral committee, rather than the judiciary. Commenting on escalations in Gaza, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Mahdy Akef, condemned the Israeli violence in a press statement. Akef addressed the Arab league, blaming it for not "giving enough attention to the Gaza crisis as it did to Lebanon.
