The public prosecutor in Minya began interrogating two alleged Muslim Brotherhood members arrested in Dair Mowass Wednesday over charges of attempting to bribe voters with money and blankets to boycott the referendum, and using thugs to cut off access to the street.
The arrested are Mohamed G., 42, head of an NGO and a grocer at Cisco Village, and Mahmoud A., 35, a farmer at the same village.
The police seized the NGO’s seal, and Mohamed’s mobile phone for having messages insulting the army, the police, and the regime, including a message that read: “The constitutional referendum in Egypt will take it backward,” according to initial investigations.
Many international rights groups and Western countries have criticized Egypt’s roll back on human rights as it tries to contain the country’s largest opposition group. After the declaration of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by the interim government, any suspected affilation with the group is now warrant for arrest.
Since the ouster of Egypt’s first democractically-elected president, Mohamed Morsy, who hailed from the Brotherhood, the interim government has cracked down on the organization and its members, killings and arresting hundreds in protests. The most grave incident was the August dispersals of Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda squares, where almost 600 mostly peaceful protesters were killed by the Egyptian military.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
