Long live Mubarak and Rice, mentors of freedom and democracy!

reuters: Egypt police arrest 200 Islamists

Egyptian police have arrested 200 Muslim Brotherhood activists hours before legislative elections on Sunday which the Islamist group is contesting, a leading Brotherhood member said.

Essam el-Erian told Reuters the activists detained overnight included representatives and supporters of Muslim Brotherhood candidates contesting 60 seats in the second stage of the elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which is officially banned, had more than doubled its strength in parliament in the first stage, winning 34 of the 164 seats contested earlier this month.

Brotherhood deputy leader Mohamed Habib said the arrests indicated a reversal in the neutrality police had shown towards the Islamist group in the first stage of voting.

"It is clear that a type of retreat in the neutrality of the security apparatus has begun," he said. Link

db: "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither,"

"Throughout the Middle East the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty,"
Condoleezza Rice 20 June, 2005