Around 500 people on Thursday protested outside a security department in the Delta after the arrest of some Islamists. Police had Wednesday night arrested around 20 supporters of a parliamentary Islamist candidate in the Nile Delta province of Dakhalia. Abdel Hamid Rashad, a sympathiser of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, said police had arrested 20 of his supporters for no reason. Rashad is vying for the mid-term election of the Shura Council, which is due to be held on June 1. “I think these arrests are because of the upcoming elections,” he said. “We just introduce ourselves to the local voters, especially as the elections are just 10 days to go.” The Brotherhood, whcih is officially banned but has affiliated candidates in Parliament, said the Government had approved 12 of the 14 candidates it put forward to run for seats in the June l election of the Shura Council. How the Brotherhood fares in the Shura vote will provide clues about what to expect in a second election later this year – seen as more important – for the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Egypt's Parliament), where the group controls a fifth of seats. "The Brotherhood's rivals from the ruling National Democratic Party and security forces will work to prevent them from winning votes," said Nabil Abdel-Fattah, an analyst at the Al- Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies in Cairo.
