Dr. Bishr: The Campaign may be due to MB landslide win in parliamentary election
         
The state security authorities still launch campaigns of roundups and tortures against the Muslim Brotherhood members, the recent of which was on Wednesday November 29, 2006, when the authorities rounded up two Muslim Brotherhood members from Zouwair Village, Shebeen el Kom province, Menoufeya Governorate, north of Egypt. One of them is Ahmed Gaber Emara, a teacher, while the other, Mostafa Abdul Aziz Radwan, is a civil servant.

The security authorities have, over the past month, combed villages and towns of the governorate, including towns of Menouf, Sadat, Tala and Quesna, while the campaign covered villages of Sansaft, Ramlat al Anjab, Shama, Ashohada and the city of Shebeen el Kom. Besides, the campaign didn’t include, this time, only MB members but it also reached out to their sympathizers and those suspected of supporting them. The persecution campaign included also summoning a large number of persons to the state security offices, holding them in their premises where they are ill treated and told to stand hands up during the period of their stay there. The ill treatment included beating them with hands and legs and shocking them with torture machines in sensitive parts of their bodies. Some officers even ordered some detainees to sign on documents of confessions that they didn’t say except under torture.

In a statement to Ikhwanweb, MB Executive  Bureau Member Dr. Mohammed Ali Beshr said that this campaign comes within the context of a settlement of old scores, pointing out that the Menoufeya people voted, late 2005, voted for the Muslim Brotherhood in the parliamentary election, which brought as many as 9 MB members to the parliament. This landslide win, Bishr went on to say, made the authorities launch a collective punishment against the people to scare them away from voting for the MB members in later election.

Asked whether the MB members in Menoufeya weigh a course of action, the senior MB leader said that the victims will use all legal means including posting human rights organizations to pressure the authorities to stop torture against detainees, as well as requests for information, statements and interpellations tabled by the MB Parliamentary Bloc to call on the authorities to stop this veracious campaign against the detainees.