Mass protests continued Monday across Egypt against what’s seen as a power grab by President Mohammad Morsi.
An Egyptian social rights center is reporting that Muslim Brotherhood members are rounding up opposition activists and handing them over to security forces.
The Egypt Daily News reported:
The Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) has claimed that members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) are rounding up people and handing them over to the security forces. It is alleged that they are targeting people they believe to have been involved in attacking Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) headquarters.
Malek Adly, a lawyer for ECESR said, “the MB are making lists and taking people from the street.” He reported that MB members have been moving in large groups and forcibly taking people to the central security forces, who transfer them to the police to be arrested.
Adly said “the people who are picked up are charged with attacking MB members, the police or the FJP buildings.” He added, “the ECESR have sent legal assistance to help these people and we have been successful in securing their release.”
There are also reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is beating and threatening to kill opposition journalists.
Hoqook.com reported:
Two journalists working for independent Egyptian media organization Hoqook.com received death threats from Muslim Brotherhood members/affiliates on Sunday the 25th of November.
Mohamed Allam, Hoqook.com correspondent in the Delta reporting on the clashes b
etween revolutionaries and Muslim Brotherhood members and police in the city of Damanhour, was attacked on the street in broad daylight by assailants who identified themselves as being members of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was beaten and kicked and told he would be killed or arrested if he published any news about the excessive methods used by the police and government thugs against the protesters. His camera was also taken as part of what is believed to be a broader attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to intimidate journalists in order to prevent them from covering the events and abuses that have been taking place.On the same day, Sayed Abdelah, correspondent for Hoqook.com in Suez, received a series of harassing phone calls from supporters of Mursi, followed by a death threat through his personal Facebook account. He had been reporting from Suez on protesters storming and setting on fire the offices of the Freedom and Justice Party, an event that was later denied publicly by Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson Essam el-Erian. The message Sayed Abdelah received is addressed ‘to all men of Mubarak and opponents of the rule of President Mohamed Mursi, among journalists, traitors and outlaws’. It continues to cite the Qur’an, saying that killing someone is justified for three categories of people: adulterers, murderers, and people who have turned their back on religion. It places Sayed Abdelah in the latter category, saying his work will be monitored to collect a full list of his ‘lies’ that ‘tarnish the image of Islam’ and oppose the president. It cites Islamic teachings to say these wrongdoings merit one hundred lashes (beatings) or in fact the immediate killing of the person, with no distinction between men and women. This is followed by some more citations of Qur’anic verses along the same lines. Earlier this year Sayed Abdelah was attacked physically and held captive for several hours by an extremist Salafist group he had been reporting on.
Associated Press reporter Thomas Hartwell was detained Monday morning by security forces as he was taking pictures around the Parliament building. He was released shortly after.
