CAIRO, 10 February 2005 — Egyptian security services arrested an opposition party leader yesterday shortly after he flew in from a trip to Britain, airport officials said.
They said Moussa Mustafa Moussa, deputy head of the newly-founded Al-Ghad party, was detained on a warrant issued by the attorney general in connection with an investigation of the party’s leader, Ayman Al-Nur.
An Egyptian state security judge on Jan. 31 ordered the detention of Nur for 45 days pending a fraud investigation.
The MP was accused of falsifying 1,178 documents submitted to Egypt’s political parties’ committee in support of his application to register the Al-Ghad movement.
Nur’s arrest came just days after he met with visiting former American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who heads a US body to promote democracy.
Egyptian human rights groups have called for the immediate release of Nur, who was elected party leader on Nov. 6.
They said Nur’s arrest represented “a message to other Egyptian parties at a time when many segments of Egyptian society are demanding political and democratic reforms”. Moussa was out of the country at the time of Nur’s arrest.
The party leader, who is a member of the union of Egyptian journalists, threatened to go on hunger strike from Saturday in protest of his continued detention.
He said the charges against him were politically motivated and issued the threat during a brief prison visit by a delegation from the union.
But attorney general Maher Abdul Wahid said Nur was being questioned in connection with a “criminal case under the penal code” and insisted that legal procedures were being followed. Nur was arrested outside parliament after the house lifted his immunity following a brief debate.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights yesterday denounced a decision by the Higher Press Council to suspend the launch of the Al-Ghad party’s mouthpiece, which had been due to appear on the streets earlier in the day.
The decision amounted to “a violation of freedom of opinion and expression”, the group said.
