Egyptian police detained 26 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood for protesting against Israel’s siege of Gaza and belonging to a banned group, security sources and the Brotherhood said on Wednesday.
The Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful opposition group, said the arrested members had taken part in an opposition campaign against the siege of Gaza earlier this month.
Police took 14 of the Islamists at dawn on Tuesday in the Mediterranean city of Port Said and 12 in Fayoum, an agricultural area south-west of Cairo, the group said.
The Egyptian government cooperates with Israel in blockading the Gaza Strip to undermine support among Gaza Palestinians for the Islamist movement Hamas, which runs the territory. Israel says free trade would allow Hamas to bring in arms.
Many Egyptians, especially among Hamas’s allies in the Brotherhood, oppose the government’s policy.
Egyptian police thwarted an attempt earlier this month by Islamists to break the siege by sending trucks with supplies to Gaza across the Egyptian border.
None of the trucks were able to cross the Suez Canal, which divides the Sinai peninsula from the rest of Egypt.
The Egyptian government calls the Muslim Brotherhood a banned organisation, although the group operates openly and fields independent candidates in parliamentary elections. It won a fifth of the seats in 2005 parliamentary polls.
Political 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. – Reuters