A report by Aziz el-Kaissouni:
Egypt crackdown is political revenge-Brotherhood MPs
CAIRO, Feb 10 (Reuters) – The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc on Saturday slammed an escalating government crackdown on the group as a political revenge for the gains it made during the last parliamentary elections in 2005.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak referred 40 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s strongest opposition group, to military court Monday, the first military trial of Brotherhood members since 2001.
Sobhi Saleh Moussa, a Brotherhood parliament member said the referrals were politically motivated, coming as they did after a civilian court had ordered 16 of the Islamists released.
“After the (ruling National Democratic) party’s failure to make any gains in popularity … they punished us,” Moussa, who is also part of the defence team for the defendants, told reporters at a news conference.
“We’re paying the bill for the elections, as is the (Palestinian) Hamas government,” he added, speaking on behalf of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc.
The Islamist Hamas group swept to power in Palestinian elections in January 2006, dislodging the secular Fatah group that had long dominated Palestinian politics, and prompting Western states to impose crippling economic sanctions on the Palestinian government.
The Brotherhood won nearly one-fifth of seats in the lower house of the parliament in 2005, its members running as independents to bypass a 53-year-old ban on the group.
The government widened its crackdown on the Brotherhood after a protest by Islamist students at al-Azhar University in which Brotherhood students appeared wearing militia-style uniforms.
More than 270 Brotherhood members have been jailed in the current crackdown. The group’s finances have also been targeted, with authorities detaining key financiers, freezing assets, and raiding businesses.
Moussa and other Brotherhood parliamentarians condemned the referral to military courts, whose rulings cannot be appealed, saying that Egypt’s largest opposition group had initiated legal proceedings to declare such tribunals unconstitutional in 1995, but that the constitutional court had not yet ruled in the case.
