|
CAIRO - EGYPTIAN police detained 17 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful opposition group, in dawn raids on their homes in Fayyoum province southeast of Cairo, the group said on Thursday.
A security source confirmed the detentions.
The group's website said the men would shortly be brought before prosecutors to be questioned on suspicion of membership in a banned group, charges the government regularly uses to round up Brotherhood members despite allowing the group to operate relatively openly.
Both the Brotherhood and the security source said the detentions are likely connected to clashes that took place eight days ago in Fayyoum University between students affiliated with the Brotherhood and police.
The clashes were a rare direct confrontation by the Islamist group with security forces. A Brotherhood lawyer said at the time that he expected there could be further repercussions.
The Brotherhood has held about a fifth of the seats in parliament since 2005. The group, which has long avoided violence, says its aim is to establish an Islamic state in Egypt by persuasion and through winning elections.
Analysts say the government wants to stop the Brotherhood from mounting a serious political challenge to President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, and police often detain members for long periods without formal charges.
In a separate incident, a prominent Brotherhood leader told Reuters that airport authorities in Cairo had stopped him from leaving the country.
Essam el-Erian told Reuters on Wednesday he had been stopped from travelling to Sudan a day earlier, despite a recent court ruling striking down a travel ban enforced on Erian since 2007.
| 
