Brotherhood anticipate new bout of arrests ahead of the parliamentary elections.

Brotherhood anticipate new bout of arrests ahead of the parliamentary elections.

 This precedes the controversy over the internal elections of the MB of the Executive Bureau and the Chairman.

Spokesman for the MB, Dr Essam Al-Eryan asserted in a statement to “Al-Mesryoon”, that the group did not rule out the possibility of a mass arrest campaign in the up-coming period. “History has proven that State Security will not abstain from waging their arbitrary arrests”, he added, “However we will not be deterred and will act within reason and we will continue to work for the benefit of our country”.

 
He strongly criticized the media for holding the movement responsible for the media blitz, which took place during the Brotherhood’s recent election. He asserted that they acted with discretion and were keen to privately, calmly and secretly conduct the elections. Consequently, the elections passed off quietly and smoothly.
 
Al-Eryan accused the security forces information services of being responsible for the chaos and media frenzy prior to the elections by leaking inaccurate news to the media.
 
 Dr. Mohamed Saad Al-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc and member of the Guidance Bureau, has ascertained that arrests are expected considering more than 5230 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were arrested last year, after the end of the primaries in anticipation of the forthcoming parliamentary. “In fact, the security services wish to achieve false victories in order to distract us from our primary concern; however we will not be discouraged on the contrary it will only intensify our determination to achieve our goals and experience a real election”.
 
“According to law, every citizen has the right to freely convene closed meetings and exercise political activities but the security services try hard to suppress freedoms with the excessive and unjustified use of the emergency law in order to restrict the movement’s political activities for the benefit of the ruling national Democratic Party (NDP),” Al-Aryan said. Hence, we endeavor to always limit the number of our senior leaders in any meetings.
 

The spokesman for the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc Dr. Hamdi Hassan agreed with Dr. Essam indicating that such behaviour was expected from a repressive government. He accused it of not upholding the Constitution, and the rule of law caring little for personal liberty.  He indicated that the government aims at hindering the Brotherhood from performing their duties, by disrupting their participation in the political reform process and preventing legitimate competition.

 
Ironically, Major General  Fouad Allam, a former agent of the State Security Investigation ruled out that the Security Apparatus intends to launch campaigns against the Brotherhood. He added “The security forces do not arrest any citizens except for breaking the law; and this will not take place at all as long as the movement did not violate provisions of state law.”