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Mustafa Mashour
(Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual Leader)
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CAIRO,
September 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian police on
Thursday, September 19, arrested 19 members of the banned Muslim
Brotherhood in the Cairo region, including a leader of the movement,
sources close to the security services said.
Rashad
Bayumi, a Cairo University science faculty professor and member of the
Brotherhood leadership, was among those rounded up, along with a
number of doctors, engineers and students, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
said.
On
September 4, police arrested 15 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in
southern Egypt for attempting to "revive" the banned Islamic
organization.
The
Brotherhood calls for the establishment of an Islamic state in Egypt,
but rejects the use of violence.
Some
of its activities are tolerated and 17 "independent"
candidates backed by the Muslim Brotherhood won seats in Egypt's
454-member parliament in 2000. However, their support on the streets
is generally thought to be higher.
On
September 9, a military court sentenced 51 Islamic activists to
between two years in jail and 15 years in jail with hard labor in
connection with an alleged plot to stage a coup d'etat in Egypt.
Defense
lawyers then said they were "shocked" at what they described
as heavy sentences for a case they claimed was built around
fund-raising activities for popular Islamic causes against Israel and
Russia.
"I'm
particularly shocked because this case hasn't any evidence against
these people," Negad el-Borai, a human rights lawyer who was part
of the defense team, told AFP.
These
are "very heavy sentences," he said. The young lawyer
representing the defense team in the courtroom referred AFP to other
members of the team after he declined to speak to the press.
Human
rights activists charge that since the attacks of September 11 on the
United States, the Egyptian authorities are increasingly resorting to
military courts to deal with Islamists.
Observers,
however, believe the Egyptian authorities are dealing toughly with
Islamic movements in general, in a way to avert any 'uncontrollable
reaction' in case Iraq is attacked by the United States.
