Egypt Brotherhood leaders accused of 'terrorism'

Egyptian police released 16 senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including deputy chief Mahmud Ezzat, who are charged with organising "terrorist groups," Ezzat said on Thursday.Ezzat and the others were freed on bail on Wednesday after the Cairo Criminal Court ordered their release.They were arrested in February on charges of forming "secret terrorist groups" and planning to overthrow the government.Ezzat denied the charges and said the banned group, which wants an Islamic state achieved through peaceful means, was committed to its political programme.

Egyptian authorities swooped on the opposition Muslim Brotherhood before dawn on Monday, arresting 13 members including the group's deputy chief and two other leaders, the Islamists said.Brotherhood deputy chief Mahmud Ezzat was picked up along with senior members Essam Erian and Abdel Rahman el-Berr, the group's lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maksud said in a statement posted on the website.The attorney, citing initial reports, said that 10 other members of the opposition group were also arrested in various parts of Egypt.

And apparently, our current government, given their history, will really have no problem with it.   Why do I say that?

FAYOUM, Egypt — When election-time rolls around, this impoverished province of farmlands south of Cairo has proven one of the most die-hard bastions of support for Islamists in Egypt, producing lopsided victories for the Muslim Brotherhood and its ultraconservative allies.

Egyptian police have rounded up about 600 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of this month's parliamentary election and some 250 are still detained, a senior Brotherhood official said on Tuesday.Mohammed Mursi told AFP that the crackdown on members of the opposition Islamist group began when the Brotherhood announced on October 9 plans to field candidates for the November 28 legislative polls.

Amnesty International accused Egypt on Tuesday of arresting dozens of Muslim Brotherhood members to disrupt the opposition group's elections campaign ahead of a parliamentary vote in November.Police have arrested more than 150 people since the Islamists' leader, Mohammed Badie, announced on October 9 that the group would contest 30 percent of parliament's elected seats in the election. Seventy have been released.The Brotherhood runs its candidates as independents to bypass a ban on religious parties. It won a fifth of parliament's seats in the last election in 2005.

Providing more evidence of the warming ties between Iran and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Times of London reports that the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, made a secret two-day visit to Egypt just after Christmas to meet with officials close to President Mohammed Morsi.

More than two years after Egyptians received a new president there is mass dissatisfaction with the government. There is additional frustration that anyone who challenges may challenge him lacks a formula for change. One man though could have the power, money and the plan to prove a real threat to the Muslim Brotherhood's grip on the country.