New Wave of Arrests Involves Publishers Affiliated with MB

Egyptian Security Forces arrested five publishers affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The five are Assem Shalabi, Hassan Khafaga with one of his relatives, Ibrahim Rabia, and Ibrahim Al Khateeb.

Dr. Moahmed Habib, Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, stated that arrests are part of a bigger campaign by the ruling regime to silence the opposition before proceeding with power succession to the president’s son.

Various sources have linked this new wave of arrests to the forthcoming elections, scheduled to take place in a few days, for the ‘Egyptian Publishers’ Union’ (EPU), where the detainees have a strong presence. Besides, Shalabi is a member of the Board of Directors of the EPU and Secretary of its ‘Arbitration Committee’, while Hassan Khafaga is the treasurer of the Union.

Following their arrest, they were led to an unknown place and the security personnel seized their personal belongings, amounts of money, and scholarly research work supervised by Dr. Manal Abul-Hassan, professor of information at the ‘Sixth of October University’, who is the wife of Mr. Assem Shalabi.

Since their electoral victory in the last legislative elections in Egypt late last year, varying numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members have been arrested and detained every now and then in a systematic violation by Egyptian authorities of their most basic human rights.

The Egyptian regime views the MB as the only credible and popular alternative to its corrupt and despotic system of government