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Egypt arrests opposition figures

New arrests on Wednesday of 100 senior members and potential election candidates from the banned Muslim Brotherhood have not dissuaded Egypt's largest opposition movement from running in the upcoming local elections, the group's leader said.

The arrests were the latest in an ongoing crackdown by the authorities on the group.

An Egyptian security official said troops stormed the homes of senior Brotherhood members in six Egyptian provinces, including Cairo, at dawn.

The detained were arrested on charges of joining a banned group in an attempt to revive its activities, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Brotherhood posted the names of the arrested on its Web site, saying the detentions sought to prevent the group from running in the April 8 local council elections.

Not long after the arrests were reported, the Web site then announced that the manager of its English-language site, Khaled Hamza, had also been arrested on Wednesday.

The arrest followed Hamza's meeting with the representative of the Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights.

The site suggested that he was detained because of his role in publicizing the arrests and military trials of Brotherhood members to the rest of the world.

Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the Brotherhood leader, said it will participate in the election despite the crackdown.

"It's an obligation from God to serve the people," he said.

The Brotherhood was founded in 1928 but has been officially banned since 1954.

It is Egypt's largest opposition group and its lawmakers, although they run as independents, hold more than a fifth of the seats in parliament's 454-member lower house.
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