Detainment renewed for Muslim Brotherhood members
CAIRO: Protesting the previous two renewals of their detention, top Muslim Brotherhood leaders have refused to submit to a questioning scheduled yesterday or to stand trial for their charges; the leaders and members were sent back to custody in Tora Mazraa and Wadi Al-Natroun prisons.
Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson Essam Al-Arian, arrested last April, and Mohammad Morsi, guidance office senior member, said that they had been questioned two times previously and were sent back to prison both times. The leaders threw doubt on the effectiveness of the questioning and the fairness of the attorney’s office. Forty other members followed suit, in protest of the extension of their detention without “an appropriate trial or real charges.
The members were transferred back to prison in what the Brotherhood has described as “an exceptional act of boycott. The Brotherhood had assigned more than 100 lawyers to handle the activists’ case. However, the lawyers said that the members and leaders are standing firm in their decision. The members reportedly told the lawyers that “they refuse to stand behind bars for no reason or grounds, and they will refuse to be questioned in court or by the prosecutor until the attorney’s office takes them seriously.
Trial lawyers have reportedly tried to convince the members to undergo questioning to no avail. “We want fair questioning and a real trial in a court that is not controlled by state security and one that does not serve the regime that forbids reform, the detainees said in their statement to the lawyers.
The aforementioned members of the Brotherhood were arrested during fierce demonstrations in solidarity with two prosecuted judges. The Ministry of Interior had declared protests and public gathering without permission against the law, adding that protesting and insulting the president were sufficient grounds for arrest and punishment.
However, Al-Arian said that he was arrested on a Friday morning at his own house a few days following Muslim Brotherhood-led protests. Al-Arian was accused of enticing demonstrations, an act that the Muslim Brotherhood deems “within the boundaries of freedom of expression under any democratic system.
Morsi was arrested during a committee meeting held at the Umma (Nation) Center for Research and Development; a center that a Brotherhood representative said has consistently filed reports and studies that benefit the country. However, in a Ministry of Interior statement, officials deemed the meeting’s official purpose a cover for “a secret organizational meeting of Brotherhood cadres, an accusation that Morsi and his supporters vehemently deny.
“All this does not make me optimistic about the political state of the country, said Mohammed Mahdi Akef, Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide, in his statement to the press Thursday. “Power struggle and oppression defines the regime’s conduct and its attitude towards the people . Egypt is experiencing a state of fury . and the regime’s policy is responsible [for this fury].
