Egyptian police arrest four Brotherhood students

CAIRO, Mar 11 (Reuters) Egyptian police arrested four members of the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a crackdown on the largest opposition group in the country, a Brotherhood lawyer said today.

Police arrested the four college students in dawn raids in the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh. They would be presented to the prosecution later in the day, Abdel Moniem Abdel Maqsoud told Reuters.

More than 300 Brotherhood members are in detention, including third-in-command Khairat el-Shatir, who was referred to a military trial with 39 members last month on charges that include terrorism and money laundering.

The Muslim Brotherhood operates openly despite being banned since 1954. Members running as independents won nearly a fifth of the seats in the lower house of parliament in elections in 2005, second only to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak.

Analysts say the authorities feel they have to stop the Brotherhood now before they make more electoral gains that could see them mount a serious threat to Mubarak's rule.

The US State Department's annual human rights report, released on Tuesday, cited a pattern of arbitrary arrest and detention of the group's members over the past year.

Reuters MS DB2138