At a rally on Monday, presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh condemned what he labeled the “terrorist tactic” used by the security forces in storming civil society organizations.

Last week, police raided more than a dozen offices of local and foreign rights groups as part of a probe into alleged illicit foreign funding.

“The military council is following Mubarak’s way in silencing the honorable rights groups that expose the violations of the regime,” he said. “This is unacceptable after the revolution.”

“Nobody is above the law,” he added. “Even the president is a public servant, not a master.”

Abouel Fotouh also condemned the sluggishness of the government in granting rights to families of the martyrs and victims of the revolution.

"Those families do not want to be compensated with money," he said. “They want to penalize those who killed or wounded their relatives.”

He also said the Egyptian people would not accept the rule of a single extremist ideology, be it Islamist or secular. “The era of intimidation is over,” he said.

Translated from Al-Masry Al-Youm