Egyptian authorities yesterday arrested two more Islamist figures: a top ally of the Muslim Brotherhood as he reportedly tried to flee to neighboring Libya disguised as a woman, and a spokesman for the Islamist group on his way to catch a flight out of the country.
The arrests are the latest in a crackdown by Egypt’s new military-backed leaders against the Muslim Brotherhood group, from which ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi hails.
They came just a day after authorities detained the Brotherhood’s supreme leader and spiritual guide, Mohammed Badie, dealing a serious blow to the embattled movement that is now struggling to keep up street protests against the military’s overthrow of Morsi. Hundreds, including the group’s former lawmakers, politicians, and field operatives are already in custody.
Photo: EPA
Morsi and his top aides have been held at an unknown location, incommunicado since the July 3 military coup.
Cleric Safwat Hegazy, a fiery Salafi preacher and top Brotherhood ally, was captured yesterday at a checkpoint near the Siwa Oasis in eastern Egypt and close to the border with Libya, according to the state-run MENA news agency.
The cleric is wanted on charges of instigating violence.
According to the Web site of the state-run al-Ahram daily, Hegazy had shaved off most of his beard, dyed his hair and covered his face with a niqab, a head-to-toe woman’s dress that leaves only a slit for the eyes uncovered.
Egyptian state TV aired a photograph showing him sitting next to army soldiers, dressed in white robe with the new shaven look.
MENA said Hegazy, who joined ranks with the Muslim Brotherhood in campaigning for Morsi’s presidential bid, showed no resistance during his arrest and was flown to a detention center in Cairo.
Hegazy was a key speaker at the main pro-Morsi sit-in that was dispersed by security troops on Wednesday last week in Cairo’s Nasr City suburb. He told protesters to hold their ground and promised to deal blows to the military.
He is wanted on charges of instigating deadly clashes last month with security forces outside a Republican Guard building that killed 54 people, most of them Morsi supporters.
An Egyptian security official said Mourad Ali, a spokesman for the Brotherhood’s political party, was detained at the Cairo airport, trying to catch a flight to Italy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
ELBARADEI
Meanwhile, former Egyptian interim vice president Mohamed ElBaradei is being sued for a “betrayal of trust” over his decision to quit the army-backed government in protest at its bloody crackdown on the Brotherhood.
The case points to the prospect of a new wave of politically driven lawsuits being brought to court following the downfall of Morsi, whose supporters brought a raft of cases against opposition figures during his year in power.
The cases, many of them for “insulting the president,” have been criticised by anti-government activists as a form of political intimidation.
ElBaradei’s case, brought by an Egyptian law professor, will be heard in a Cairo court on Sept. 19, judicial sources said on Tuesday.
ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear agency and co-leader of the secular National Salvation Front grouping, was the most prominent liberal to endorse the military’s overthrow of Morsi on July 3 following mass protests.
He resigned on Aug. 14 after security forces attacked the protest camps set up by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo, killing hundreds of people.
Additional reporting by Reuters
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS