Arab West Report Egyptian press summaries and media research for dialogue

Well-informed sources in Cairo informed al-Sharq al-

Awsat that Egyptian security forces arrested, about a month ago, seventy Islamic activists, charging

them with

belonging to a fundamentalist organization in Alexandria. This organization is suspected to be an

Egyptian cell of

al-Qā‘idah. The sources claimed that the arrested people came from

Sīdī Bishr, al-

‘Asafirah and al-Qā’id Ibrāhīm. Authorities believe that this

group is linked

through the internet with Qā‘idah in Iraq. According to sources, the

authorities have

expropriated a number of PCs from the houses of some of the organization’s members, as well

as some books that

discuss jihād.

Mamdūh Ismā‘īl, an Egyptian lawyer, and

the legal

representative of some of the accused, declared that the arrested persons have not yet been

represented before the

prosecution. Their families and lawyers do not know where they are.

Ismā‘īl stressed that

the majority of the arrested persons have nothing to do with al-

Qā‘idah, nor do they have any

terrorist intentions. He also added that Egyptian authorities

fear the existence of al-Qā‘idah in

Egypt, especially after repeated bombings in the Sinai,

so they have enlarged their scope of accusation to suspect

anyone who might belong to an Islamic

group.

Egyptian security authorities also distributed a list of the

names of three Palestinians to

all border posts. The three may have succeeded in penetrating Egyptian territory

through the borders with

Gaza. They are expected to execute terrorist operations in the Sinai

Peninsula.

Furthermore, hearings

for the case of the Tābā and Nuwaībic explosions will

reconvene on Sunday September 3 for the

first time since last year. The State Security Supreme Court at

Ismā‘īliyah, however,

will proceed the sessions of the trial of the fifteen members of the

Tawhīd wa-al-Jihād organization

accused of executing the explosions of Sinai that took place in the

two previous years [Taba, Sharm al-

Sheikh and Dahab].

The court, headed by the consultant Ahmad al-

Khashshsāb, decided on August 26,

2005 to put off the session until today to listen to the defense and

persecution proceedings. Six of the

arrested are accused of belonging to an illegal organization and of murder,

abusing public and private

properties and of fabricating and using explosives. The others, however, are just

accused of belonging to

the organization.

The accused persons denied all charges in the previous hearings,

asserting that

they were subject to psychological and physical abuses. The Egyptian Police accused a local group,

last

March, led by a Palestinian who lived in al-‘Arīsh, of executing the bombings in

Tābā

and Nuwaybi‘ that took place in October [2004] where 34 Egyptians,

Israelis and other

foreigners were killed, while 157 others were injured.

Similar news was reported by

al-

Hayāt on August 3, 2006.

On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood, banned in Egypt, has

denied being involved in the attempted assassination of the writer Najīb Mahfūz about twelve years

ago,

claiming that it was merely "intellectual discord."

The group declared that in his writings in

the 90s

Najīb Mahfūz defended the Islamic movement, adding that "the attempt to assassinate the

great writer

Najīb Mahfūz was not a general policy in the group."