Egypt Pressures Muslim Group

Image by dlisbona via Flickr

By ASHRAF KHALIL

CAIRO -- Egypt has accelerated a crackdown against the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, amid uncertainty over succession plans by President Hosni Mubarak and ahead of next year's parliamentary polls.

Authorities last week detained 30 Brotherhood members in the city of Suez. Two days later, security forces arrested seven midlevel Brotherhood officials gathered for a meeting in Cairo. The next day, officials rounded up an additional 18 members northeast of the capital. Two detainees have since been released, but the 53 others rounded up remain in custody without charges.

The flurry of detentions appears to be wider ranging than previous crackdowns on the group, targeting activists and Brotherhood leaders seen as moderates and reform-minded. In July, two prominent young Brotherhood bloggers, Abdel Rahman Ayyash and Magdy Saad, were detained at Cairo's airport. They spent a week in custody before being released.

In June, Abdel-Moneim Abul-Fotouh, another prominent moderate and a member of the Brotherhood's ruling guidance council, was arrested. He remains behind bars, uncharged, on a rolling series of 15-day detention orders, the latest handed down Sunday.

Brotherhood officials and some analysts say the crackdown is the latest push by Mr. Mubarak to marginalize the group. "It has become a zero-sum game," said Khalil al-Anani, an expert on Islamist political movements. In a July article published in the Daily News Egypt newspaper, Mr. Anani wrote that the Mubarak regime seeks "to eradicate [the Brotherhood] completely from political life."

Officials aligned with the government suggest the crackdown has more to do with public criticism of Egypt's muted reaction to an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. The Brotherhood organized public demonstrations over the issue, in defiance of a government security lockdown.

In a January statement, the group's supreme guide, Mahdi Akef, challenged the regime to cut political and economic ties with Israel, and fully open the border with Gaza.

"The Brotherhood has been overstepping their role regarding foreign policy," said Abdel Moneim Said, head of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, and a member of the powerful Policies Secretariat in the ruling National Democratic Party. Now the government, he said, "wants to remind them of the limits of the game."

Efforts to obtain comment from government officials were unsuccessful. Egyptian officials typically speak of the Brotherhood as a threat to public order and often refuse to refer to it by name in interviews, instead calling it "the banned group."

The 81-year-old Mr. Mubarak has ruled Egypt for almost three decades. In June, he looked frail receiving U.S. President Barack Obama in Cairo, triggering a fresh bout of speculation about his health.

During his trip to Washington this month, however, he looked more vigorous, quieting health concerns. Still, Mr. Mubarak has never made a succession plan clear, refusing even to name a vice president.

The Brotherhood's influence here has fallen in recent years. Technically outlawed, it still fields Brotherhood-affiliated candidates in Egyptian elections. In 2005, those candidates won 20% of seats in parliament, which triggered roundups and detentions.

Egypt also amended its constitution to make it more difficult for independent candidates, like those affiliated with the Brotherhood, to run. The Brotherhood boycotted local council elections last year after the government rounded up more than 800 of its members, including dozens of prospective candidates.

Some reformist members say the new crackdown could backfire by radicalizing members. The group swore off violence in the 1970s.