Egypt nab 14 Brotherhood members

Published on Saturday 16th August 2008

Cairo: Egyptian police detained 14 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful opposition group, in the Nile Delta province of Menufia on Sunday, Brotherhood and security officials said.

Police detained the men while they were holding a meeting at a mosque after dawn prayer, a security official said. The group, however, said police took them from their homes in dawn raids.

A security official said the men were held on suspicion of belonging to an illegal organisation and having organisational literature.

The Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed but the group operates openly. Its members stand in elections as independent candidates.

An unexpectedly strong showing in the 2005 parliamentary election led to an intensified government crackdown against the group. Since then, several Brotherhood leaders have been prosecuted and imprisoned.

Political analysts say the government wants to stop the Brotherhood from becoming a real threat to the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981. Mubarak's ruling party has a comfortable majority in every elected body in the country.