In a written address to the Muslim nation on Thursday, freshly-elected Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie talked about "trying times," recalling how the Prophet Mohamed had set an example by resisting the attacks of the disbelievers. The reminder comes at a critical time, when three of the MB’s top names are in custody and the group continues to dodge state charges of "terrorism."
In his message, posted on the MB’s official online portal, Badie described the ill-treatment and torture suffered at the hands of the state as "the price that must be paid for spreading the message of Islam; it’s the cost of paradise."
Badie himself was not available for comment on the recent wave of arrests of group members, but his message to the nation was not without a response to the government.
"Let no one think these calamities are due to the fact that we’ve entered the political arena or because we’ve chosen to run in elections; or that we would be saving ourselves if we stopped [political work] and limited ourselves to spreading the message and to educational activities..," he wrote. "No, and a thousand nos… By God, if we leave them [the government] alone, they would never leave us in peace."
"They’re not fighting us so as to marginalize us from parliament, syndicates, unions or clubs..," Badie wrote. "The real reason [for the arrest campaign] is the message of truth that we bear, and the all-encompassing Islam we stand for."
His message was clear: that when it comes to domestic politics, the MB is here to stay.
"Getting out of politics isn’t even an option," MB media spokesman Mohamed Morsi told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Thursday. Morsi added that the group was long used to government "scare-tactics."
Like the 2008 arrest and imprisonment of 40 top MB leaders, including some with deep pockets and influence like businessman Khairat el-Shater, fresh blows against the group’s upper echelons would "fail to shake it up," Morsi said. "These incidents create a disturbance, but they don’t serve to destabilize the group."
According to Morsi, some 5000 group members–including many from its younger cadres–were detained last year alone.
"Within the past three years, around 11,500 members have been arrested. Within the last ten years, 30,000 of our people have been rounded up," he said. "This is the state we live in. Arrests are old news. They affect us, but they don’t destroy us."
The latest crackdown began on 6 February, with the arrest of eight MB members from the northern province of Beheira in a dawn raid. Two days later, the arrest campaign expanded to include prominent group leaders, including Deputy to the Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat, media spokesman Essam el-Erian, and Al-Azhar University professor Abdel Rahman el-Bar.
An additional 34 members were detained is several provinces, including Sharqiya, Assiut, Alexandria, Fayoum, Dakahliya and Gharbiya.
Following the arrests, MB lawyer Abdel Moneim Abdel Maqsoud told reporters that the detentions remained "unexplained." On the same day, another ranking MB member was forbidden from campaigning ahead of upcoming elections for the Shura Council, the consultative chamber of parliament.
According to a press release issued by the MB’s authoritative Guidance Bureau, all group meetings had been cancelled by the authorities with the stated aim of "preventing chaotic gatherings."
The timing of the arrests is significant, coming less than one month after MB internal elections, which had been marred by rivalries and backbiting and which saw some MB bigwigs–such as former deputy guide Mohamed Habib–leaving the organization for good. What’s more, the crackdown comes less than two months before elections for the Shura Council, scheduled for April, and parliament, slated for November.
Political analyst Hossam Tamam described the latter as "an election that the government cannot afford to compromise on. It cannot let the MB score a bunch of seats this time around."
In 2005, the MB–running as independents since the group is formally banned–clinched a total of 88 seats, capturing roughly one fifth of the assembly and becoming the most formidable opposition bloc in parliament.
"But upcoming parliamentary elections will be nothing like those in 2005," Tamam told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "Back then, the MB presence was tolerated. But these elections will be directly tied to the 2011 presidential elections–and that contest is the most sensitive of all."
According to Tamam, the recent crackdown is typical of how the government deals with the MB.
"The government knows it cannot completely eliminate the MB, because the group is too prominent on the local and international levels and so deeply rooted in political and social life," he said. Doing what [former president Gamal] Abdel Nasser did–arrest 30,000 MB members in a single night–is completely out of the question. So they have to use different tactics."
All the government can do, Tamam added, is deliver a series of "strong and steady blows" against the group’s leadership and membership base.
"The purpose here is to confuse them: stir them up without provoking an all-out confrontation with them," he said. "It’s all about keeping them under pressure–non-stop."
