State Security detained him for over six months despite court orders for release. They tried unsuccessfully to put him under house arrest. Now, they are banning him from traveling outside the country.
Egypt bars senior Brotherhood member from Qatar trip
by Aziz El-Kaissouni
CAIRO, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Egyptian security forces barred a top member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s strongest opposition group, from traveling to Qatar on Tuesday, security and Brotherhood sources said.
Essam el-Erian, who heads the Brotherhood’s political department, said airport authorities told him they had been instructed by State Security officials to stop him from traveling.
Erian, who was recently released after more than six months in detention, was scheduled to travel to Qatar to attend a conference that brings together nationalist and Islamist activists from around the Arab World.
While his passport was initially stamped, airport officials told him they would carry out further checks, later informing him that he would not be allowed to leave the country.
Erian said he and other members of the Brotherhood had in the past successfully sued to have their names removed from the government’s no-travel list, but were still often barred from travel.
“Occasionally they’ll let me through, and occasionally they’ll stop me. But I no longer have the desire to seek their permission every time I want to travel … there’s no legal basis for this,” Erian said.
An Interior Ministry spokesman declined to comment.
In the past two months, several members of the Brotherhood have been banned from travel, and in November Al Jazeera television’s Cairo bureau chief was also barred from travel to Qatar and briefly detained.
On Saturday, Egyptian prosecutors ordered the detention of scores of Brotherhood members for 15 days for questioning in connection with a protest march at al-Azhar University in which several dozen Islamist students wore black militia-style uniforms and black balaclavas.