CAIRO, 13 June 2005 — Egyptian authorities yesterday released 163 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood who were among hundreds detained in a crackdown on the opposition movement during May protests, a judicial source said. Police arrested hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members during the protests for political reform and then jailed hundreds more in later demonstrations calling for the release of those held. An Interior Ministry source said 486 people were still being held for ties to the Brotherhood.
They include leading members of the group, which like other opposition groups says recent political reform by the government aims to secure power for the incumbents rather than allow more competition. The Brotherhood says a constitutional amendment replacing the old referendum on a single candidate for the post of president with a system allowing multi-candidate elections in fact aims to bar it from fielding a candidate.
To contest the election, the Brotherhood would have to win the approval of at least 65 members of Parliament and the support of members of other elected bodies, which are all dominated by the ruling party. Close to 200 have now been released but the movement’s main leaders remain behind bars, including secretary-general Mahmoud Ezzat and Issam Al-Iryan, another senior Brotherhood official.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian Islamist, held in prison for 24 years for taking part in the assassination of former President Anwar Sadat in 1981, said he will run for presidency in September’s elections despite his detention. Abboud Al-Zomor who was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly conspiring the assassination, said he has already prepared his election campaign and has a comprehensive program to apply if he becomes the president.
“His program is compromised mainly of 50 plans to achieve political, social and economic reform in the country,” said Zomor’s wife. “He will cancel the current taxation system, reduce the state’s expenditures, release all the political detainees and guarantee the freedom of press and of forming political parties,” she told Arab News.
The program calls for constitutional reform and activating the article in the Egyptian Constitution that stipulates that the Shariah is the main source for laws while repealing all laws that conflict with it. Zomor’s program states that Egypt should be ruled through an elected Parliament and should achieve basic self-sufficiency that guarantees its political independence.
Mamdouh Ismail, Zomor’s lawyer, said that according to the law Zomor can run for presidency. “The longest sentence is 20 years and therefore Zomor should have been set free at least four years ago so he can run for the elections,” said Ismail. Zomor, the second Egyptian under detention to decide to join the presidential race after Ayman Nour, the head of Al-Ghad party, and other members of Jihad were convicted in 1984 of plotting the assassination of Sadat in cooperation with the Gamaa Islamiya. He launched a huger strike for a week last month to protest the interior minister’s refusal to set him free despite completing his sentence.
Nour, who was released on 10,000 Egyptian pounds bail last March, launched an online radio station to become Egypt’s first party to have its own private radio station in Egypt’s history after the government refused to grant him an FM license. “This is the first real attempt to break the monopoly of the state media and the control of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and so far we have got thousands of listeners who tuned in to our station,” said Nour. “But we will not stop at this point...right now we are filing a lawsuit against the Egyptian Radio and Television Union for not letting us having an FM station,” he told Arab News.
