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Widespread violence mars Egypt elections
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-21 19:52
Ibrahim Hammad, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, accused the
Brotherhood of using thugs to intimidate voters and attack other candidates'
supporters.
But the Brotherhood candidate Mustafa Awadallah accused the government of
hiring men to cause trouble outside polling stations to create a pretext for
closing them early.
"This is unbelievable government terrorism," he said.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights also blamed the ruling party in a
report Sunday.
Candidates associated with the Brotherhood, banned in 1954, won 34 seats in
the first round of voting. While prohibited from formally becoming a political
party, the Brotherhood fields candidates as nominal independents whose
sympathies are widely known by voters.
The Brotherhood calls for implementing Islamic law but
is vague about what that means. It advocates the veil for women and campaigns
against perceived immorality in the media, but insists it represents a more
moderate face of Islam than that followed in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia.
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