Lately, Egyptian police ordered the arrest of 75 members of the opposition Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. With the upper house of parliament's election being next week, such arrest came at the right timing for the government in power. True? Although the group is outlawed, the suspected members do stand for election as independents (you can't stop them from doing so). And the Islamist party did receive a significant result in the last parliamentary election in 2005. Maybe the present government felt their 'presence'.
With that arrest, it drove about 100 lawyers to the military court trying to bail those 75 guys out. Can you imagine the mayhem at the court with 100 lawyers jostling to get their clients out as fast as possible. Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights has objected on the mass arrest. Not a good public relation for Egypt.
Not only opposition members are arrested, even bloggers were not spared. Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, who blogs under the name of Kareem Amer, was arrested last November which drawn wide protest from blogging community locally and internationally.Together with him, another blogger by the name of Abdul-Moneim Mahmud was also arrested where he blogs under Ana Ikhwan. Their arrests has triggered protest from Reporters Without Borders which has added Egypt into their list of 13 countries that censor and harass people who publish online news. Another piece of human rights issue that doesn't put Egypt in a good standing.
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