Egypt detains 26 Muslim Brotherhood students

CAIRO, June 30 (Reuters) Egyptian police detained 26 students from the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful opposition group, in the coastal city of Alexandria today, Brotherhood and security sources said.

The students, all from Cairo's Ain Shams university, had been on holiday in Alexandria when police raided their lodgings at dawn, one Brotherhood source said.

The security source said they had been detained for holding meetings and possessing Brotherhood literature.

The government says the Brotherhood is an illegal organisation and frequently detains its members, often releasing them without charge after days or weeks in detention.

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

The Brotherhood won 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament in 2005, but failed to win any seat to the upper house of parliament in June elections that were marred by reports of widespread irregularities.

REUTERS SBC BD1725