Rights group urges Egypt to lift Brotherhood ban

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

CAIRO, May 31 (Reuters) The US-based group Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government today to legalise the Muslim Brotherhood, the influential Islamist movement outlawed in the 1950s, and stop arresting people for membership.

A government crackdown on the movement continued today when police made dawn raids in the provinces of Giza and Beni Suef.

Seventeen members were detained, including senior figures in the group's provincial hierarchy, Brotherhood sources said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), like the Brotherhood, linked the recent wave of detentions to preparations for elections on June 11 to the upper house of parliament, or Shoura Council.

HRW added in a statement: ''The Egyptian government has never convincingly justified its continued ban of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has renounced violence for more than 30 years. Human Rights Watch called on the government to lift the ban and to cease arresting people solely for their alleged membership in the organisation.'' It said 223 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition movement despite its outlawed status, were currently imprisoned.

''In the week Egypt boasted about its election to the UN Human Rights Council, it was arresting scores of people solely for exercising their right to free association and free speech,'' HRW Deputy Director Joe Stork said in the statement.

Egypt won an uncontested election to one of the African seats on the Human Rights Council on May 17.

The statement said that security forces had arrested 87 Brotherhood members in the week between May 12 and May 19 alone.

The government says the Brotherhood is an illegal organisation and frequently harasses it by detaining members for holding meetings or possessing Brotherhood literature.

But the organisation runs an office in Cairo and fields candidates in elections as independents.

On Monday, the Brotherhood said it had successfully registered 19 candidates for the June 11 elections, just one short of its goal of 20.

Egyptians have largely ignored election for the Shoura Council, or upper house, in the past, but the next elections will be the first since changes to the constitution gave some legislative powers to the council.

Previous constitutional amendments in 2005 also said that independent candidates for the Egyptian presidency needed the support of a number of Shoura Council members.

The Brotherhood won 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament in 2005, but has no seats in the Shoura Council.

Egyptian police detained a Muslim Brotherhood candidate for the upper house of parliament and 11 supporters on Tuesday as they campaigned in the Nile Delta province of Sharkia.

REUTERS NC KN1912

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