CAIRO: Authorities arrested Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leader Gamal Heshmat along with another group member Osama Suleiman on the outskirts of Damanhour in the governorate of Beheira Monday evening. The two MB members were taken at two separate checkpoints while they were in their cars. Their current whereabouts are not known and no reason was given for their arrest. Yet MB MP Hamdy Hassan believes that Heshmat's arrest was part of a concerted campaign against the group during election season, with the Shoura Council elections to be held within. “During elections it is always open season on the Muslim Brotherhood to prevent them from running in elections,” he told Daily News Egypt. “Heshmat is a big symbol in Beheira and the arrest was to terrorize people from participating in the elections.” Heshmat is a former two-term MP who ran against NDP candidate Mustapaha El-Fikky in 2005 but lost out to him in a controversial election in which the Brotherhood accused the regime of rigging the results. The MB website said that in the early hours of Tuesday morning authorities raided the two members' homes and conducted a search which lasted 45 minutes. Hassan said that the group has not yet announced the name of the candidates it plans to field in the elections for fear that they would be arrested. “You are dealing with a police regime, one which is trying to forge elections, not a democratic one.” The Brotherhood has been on the receiving end of numerous arrest campaigns recently, the latest of which involved members of its ruling Guidance Office and their Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat. Others who were taken included Essam El-Erian, Abdel-Rahman El-Barr and Mohei Hamed as well as 12 other detainees from various governorates who were detained in early February and were released by early April.
