Yesterday, the doctors finally impeached the regime’s man, Dr. Hamdy el-Sayyed, from the presidency of the syndicate.

Members of the Doctors’ Syndicate along with the Doctors Without Rights movement organized a protest in front of the syndicate Sunday, demanding an increase in doctors’ salaries.
Protesters led by Essam El-Erian, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood group, threatened that doctors will go on strike if their demands were not met. He criticized government policies as well as those of the Ministry of Health regarding salary increases.
“We will keep protesting until our demands are met; if they aren’t we will go on strike like the Fayyoum doctors,” Rashwan Shaaban Rashwan, one of the leaders of Doctors Without Rights told Daily News Egypt.
Rashwan explained that a court case demanding doctors’ right to strike was adjourned to Sept. 1.
“All we want is a reasonable salary that enables doctors to live a good life and continue higher studies,” Rashwan added.
According to Rashwan, a fresh graduate from the Faculty of Medicine is paid LE 250 per month and a senior doctor is paid LE 600, while graduate studies fees are LE 1,600.
Doctors also criticized government policies in combating Hepatitis viruses B and C and ignoring cases that are known to carry them. They also demanded that the ministry increase doctors’ medical insurance in case they are infected — currently insurance is at LE 15 a day, while medication is prohibitively expensive.
Protesters carried banners urging President Mubarak to give the issue some attention and solve their problems before it is too late.
El-Erian criticized a recent decision by the Ministry of Health to hike the fees of mental health institutes, pointing out that they have now exceeded private hospital fees.

The MBs mobilization around the doctors’ issue constitute a classical case of how the Islamist group’s contradictory politics functions…
At the height of the struggle (which is by no means over) last February and March, Erian worked hand in hand with [the pro-govt head of the syndicate] Hamdi el-Sayyed in sabotaging the efforts by the leftist and independent doctors to mobilize for a national strike.

Muslim Brotherhood activists also did their best to curb the militancy of the sit-ins staged by doctors on the doorstep of their syndicate, which even reached the level of physically evicting leftist activists who descended on the syndicate to show solidarity with the protesters.

Now that the strike has been sabotaged, and the series of sit-ins died down, it’s much safer for Essam and the MBs to make such rhetorical statements and threats about the strike.. just to push the regime to act before something concrete happens on the ground which can well go beyond their control.

SS told Essam they were implementing an interior minister’s decree, issued 15 May 2007, banning the popular MB leader from leaving 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.

I spoke with Dr. Essam an hour ago, to tell him “Kaffara ya doctor.” He said he will be standing in court tomorrow 10am at the Tagamou’ el-Khames Court, where he’ll contest in front of a judge the house detention order.

UPDATE: The court lifted the house arrest:

Two top Muslim Brotherhood leaders freed in Egypt
By Cynthia Johnston
CAIRO, Dec 10 (Reuters) – A Cairo court on Sunday set free two leading members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood detained since anti-government protests in May, overruling a move by prosecutors to keep them under house arrest.
Essam el-Erian and Muhammad Mursi were the two most senior Brotherhood officials in detention. Erian is the head of the group’s political department and Mursi is a leading Brotherhood politician.
Judicial sources and the Brotherhood said the men were released from prison late on Saturday following a decision by prosecutors, but they were to be kept under house arrest.
On Sunday, the Brotherhood challenged the house arrest and a court ordered it to be lifted. Mursi, speaking to Reuters shortly after the court ruling, said the decision to cancel the  house arrest was “an achievement for the Egyptian judiciary”.
“This decision (to release us) should have been taken months ago,” he said. “The case that we were subject to contained no serious accusations. It was a political case of the first degree.”
Although officially banned, the Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s strongest opposition movement. Members elected as independents hold about one-fifth of seats in parliament, which is dominated by President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party.
Erian and Mursi had been held since they were arrested in May during protests in support of Egyptian judges demanding greater independence from the executive.
Political analysts said the move by prosecutors to impose house arrest appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to find a loophole in Egyptian law that would help authorities to maintain restrictions on detainees even after their release.
While prosecutors may renew detentions every 15 days, they cannot generally do so indefinitely and detainees must eventually either be put on trial or set free.
Indefinite detention is generally reserved for detainees viewed as security threats.
“I think they were giving it a good try to establish this precedent of house arrest,” said Muhammad el-Sayed Said, deputy director of Egypt’s Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“I have never heard of this practice before of the government putting someone under house arrest … Fortunately it wasn’t (successful). It is an obvious infringement of fundamental human rights.”

I’m really saddened by this, and even more upset that the MB is mobilizing tens of thousands on university campuses against Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni’s remarks about the veil, and NOT mobilizing for their detainees.

The detention of two senior members of Muslim Brotherhood renewed for more than 2 weeks
By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Two senior members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood who have been in prison for six months have had their detentions renewed for more than two weeks, police and group Web site said.
Essam el-Erian and Mohammed Morsi, who were jailed for organizing pro-reform protests in May, had their detentions extended for 15 days on Saturday, said police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The two are leading members of Egypt’s largest Islamic political organization and were among more than 500 members detained by authorities in May when several demonstrations were held in support of two reformist judges facing disciplinary action.
In August, a lower court ordered the release of both men after they spent three months in jail without being charged. However, two days later, a higher court overhauled that verdict, and they remained in prison.
El-Erian, a former lawmaker, also was arrested last year for five months during a wave of anti-government protests but was released after Egypt’s presidential elections in September.
Morsi is a member of the Brotherhood’s political bureau and formerly headed its bloc in parliament.
The Brotherhood, which is formally banned but somewhat tolerated, won nearly a fifth of the parliament in last year’s elections, making it the largest opposition group.
Founded in 1928 and banned since 1954, the Brotherhood is believed to have tens of thousands of followers.

I would have loved to see those thousands brought out by the MB in demos in solidarity with Dr. Essam el-Erian and Dr. Muhammad Mursi, and the rest of the MB detainees. Or has the Brotherhood forgotten about them? I would have loved to see those thousands mobilized over labor and student unions violations, or over police brutality.

Ya Ikhwan Ya Muslimeen grow up, and stop wasting your energies on those stupid moral crusades.

UPDATE: Thousands of Islamist students demonstrated today at Al-Azhar University campus in el-Darrassa, against Farouk Hosni.