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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (1315)	12/24/2001 2:54:38 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 32591

Thanks for warning but I do not think I will curtail my plans touring Israel because of arab terrorists

To: Scoobah who wrote (1315)	12/24/2001 8:31:12 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Monday, 24 December, 2001, 16:13 GMT Egyptian Islamists on trial Human rights activists have condemned the arrests An Egyptian military court has begun the high security trial of 22 members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood arrested in a post-11 September crackdown on Islamist activity. The charge sheet read out by the presiding judge accused all the defendants of being members of an organisation which seeks to impede the application of the country's constitution. The accused, who include university professors, doctors and engineers, waited in a metal cage for their hearing to begin at the large, heavily guarded Huckstep barracks in the desert northeast of Cairo. The BBC's Heba Saleh says some of the defendants are top-ranking Muslim Brotherhood officers. The Brotherhood has been banned by the Egyptian Government since 1954 Three of the 22 are accused of having "led or run an illegal organisation". Eight others are charged with "managing" the same organisation, while the remaining 11 are accused of belonging to it. The defendants are also accused of trying to exploit anger over recent events in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories to incite students and citizens to rise up against the Egyptian authorities. Some could face life sentences if they are found guilty. However, defence lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsud told the AFP news agency that, for political reasons, prison sentences in trials of members of the Muslim Brotherhood are generally between three and five years. Crackdown Egypt has cracked down on Muslim militants since the events of 11 September, with some 260 suspected militants arrested in the past month. We deplore this ferocious attack, stressing that it does not serve anybody Brotherhood statement on the US attacks The Muslim Brotherhood, despite technically being a banned organisation, remains one of Egypt's most prominent and vocal opposition groups, with 17 members of the organisation holding independent seats in the 454-seat parliament. The organisation says it seeks the establishment of an Islamic state through peaceful means. When the men were arrested in early November, the Muslim Brotherhood sharply criticised the Egyptian Government for its timing of the raids after the attacks in America. "We deplore this ferocious attack, stressing that it does not serve anybody... We also deplore this attack which breaks the national unity," the group said in a statement at the time of the arrests. The crackdown has prompted international human rights activists to criticise the country for using the US-led war on terror as an excuse to seek vengeance on its political enemies. Egypt began the transfer of militant trials to military courts in the early 1990s, claiming an overflow in its civilian courts. But human rights groups say the real reason is that a "guilty" verdict is more easily achieved in military courts.