Egypt detains at least 50 in Muslim group
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-26 09:37

Police detained at least 50 members of Egypt's largest Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, Friday on the eve of run-off elections to parliament, officials said.

The detentions took place in five provinces. A senior Brotherhood official, Ali Abdel Fattah, said the detainees had been playing an active role in the outlawed group's election campaign.

"The police are back to their old habits of cracking down on the Brotherhood," Fattah said.

The group's media coordinator, Abdel Moneim Mohammed, said the police had detained 58 members.

Police confirmed the arrest of about 50 Brotherhood members in various provinces.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement that detainees had planned to deploy "thugs" at polling stations to disturb Saturday's elections.

The elections are taking place in nine provinces where no candidate got more than half the vote in the second round of the legislative polls on Nov. 20. Forty-one of the candidates standing Saturday are members of the Brotherhood.

As it is banned, the group cannot run as a party, but it endorses nominally independent candidates whose allegiance to the Brotherhood is known to the voters.

Brotherhood officials have said almost 500 of the group's activists have been arrested since three-stage parliamentary elections began on Nov. 9. So far most have been released.

The Brotherhood's surprising success in the polls — it has already won 47 seats, more than tripling its total in the outgoing parliament — has increased tensions with the ruling party headed by President Hosni Mubarak, which has long dominated the 454-seat parliament.

The third and final round of the elections is scheduled for Dec. 1.