Egyptian police detained 21 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most powerful opposition group, in the Nile Delta province of Sharkia, the Brotherhood and security sources said on Thursday.
Police detained the members of the Islamist group on Wednesday night at the home of Sayed Abdel Hamid, a Brotherhood leader and former parliamentarian, the Brotherhood said on its website.
Security sources said the men were suspected of membership of an illegal organisation, and of holding a meeting and possessing literature of a banned organisation.
Police have arrested about 40 members of the group in separate raids this month, a Brotherhood official said.
The government calls the Brotherhood a banned organisation, but the group operates openly and fields independent candidates in parliamentary elections. It won a fifth of seats in 2005 parliamentary polls.
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. – Reuters