After a series of raids and arrests that have weakened Islamic groups trying to topple the Government by force, Egyptian security forces have begun a crackdown against the country's most powerful opposition organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which rejects violence.
The campaign, which includes the detention and interrogation of scores of Muslim Brotherhood leaders, signals a drive by the Government to curtail not only those movements that have carried out violent attacks, but also one that has come to dominate many municipalities, professional and labor associations and university faculties.
The confrontation pits the Government of President Hosni Mubarak for the first time against the intellectual authors of Islamic fundamentalism, who the President contends are merely terrorists. 'This Is the First Time'
"This is the first time this Government has linked us to terrorism," said Issam al-Irian, a senior Brotherhood leader, as he sat in a spartan office in central Cairo. "It is part of a wide move by the Government to curtail all forms of democratic participation. It is an expression of the Government's weakness. But by narrowing the opportunities for democratic participation, the Government is creating more problems that it is solving."
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, is the prototype for modern Islamic fundamentalist political parties throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Although it has been officially banned since 1954, with a membership estimated in the hundreds of thousands it is the largest Egyptian opposition movement -- legal or illegal -- and dominates many of the 14,000 private philanthropies that provide services from health clinics to primary schools.
Its assets, with backing from supporters here and in Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Brotherhood, which has its headquarters in central Cairo, calls for the establishment of an Islamic state by peaceful means. It rejects the violence used by outlawed organizations like the Islamic Group in their efforts to topple the Government. Control of Civic Institutions
But at the same time, the Brotherhood has mounted an aggressive campaign to take control of a variety of civil and charitable institutions. It now dominates the largest of Egypt's 22 professional associations, including the medical, engineering and legal groups. And, aside from the rejection of the use of force, the goals of the Brotherhood dovetail with those of the underground groups.
The wide reach of the Brotherhood is based on its charitable work, including scores of clinics, hospitals and schools. But it also appeals to many Egyptians, especially those in the professional classes, as the only credible opposition movement.
"The Brotherhood, among the professional class, owes its support to the fact that it is an effective protest movement," said Said al-Naggar, the head of New Civic Forum, a liberal think tank. "It is the only outlet many people have to express dissatisfaction with the current system. Many of the professionals do not necessarily support the Islamic ideology, although there is a feeling that Western-style opposition parties, whether socialist or democratic, have failed."
But there is a price for effective organization. Women, for example, must wear the hejab, or head scarf, if they want to enter the Physicians' Union, a former leftist stronghold with a membership of 80,000 that is now controlled by the Brotherhood. Low-Cost Appliances
"The Brotherhood provides loans, cars, furniture and even electrical appliances to union members, at low cost," said Mohammed al-Farhat, who is not a member of the Brotherhood. "The union gives the physicians and their families the best quality health care at a minimal price. They have a reputation for being honest and careful with union funds." That reputation has wide appeal in a country whose Government is seen as thoroughly corrupt.
Until now, the Government concentrated its efforts on battling the Islamic Group, which has waged a two-year campaign of violence in which nearly 400 people, mainly police officers and militants, have been killed. But security forces have killed one militant commander and captured several others, putting the underground groups on the defensive.
"The security situation over all is much better now than a few months ago," a Western diplomat said. "This has made it easier to do this. The Government has the energy and the manpower available to go after what it sees as a second-tier organization."
But Brotherhood leaders say the Government wants to silence the only effective opposition in a country that nominally has a multiparty system, but where the same ruling group has been in power since 1952.
While refusing to lift the ban on the Brotherhood, President Mubarak has, until now, allowed it to operate. Brotherhood members were even permitted to run in parliamentary elections in 1988, although the candidates ran as members of the tiny Liberal and once-moribund Socialist Labor Party, both of which the Brotherhood now controls. Election Fraud Alleged
The main opposition parties, including the Socialist Labor Party, have boycotted subsequent parliamentary elections because of what they say is fraud. But the tolerance of the Brotherhood appears to have ended. For the first time, President Mubarak has begun referring to the group as a "terrorist" organization in public statements.
Government officials say documents discovered in February at the office of a company that had links to the Brotherhood directly tied the organization to violent groups.
They also say a defector from the underground armed movement detailed payments by Brotherhood supporters to armed factions.
And they have angrily criticized Brotherhood leaders for organizing a demonstration by hundreds of lawyers last month that turned violent. The demonstration was called to protest the death in police custody of a lawyer who defended jailed militants. Government critics and human rights groups say the lawyer, Abdel Harith Medani, was tortured to death. The Government denies the charge.
"The Brotherhood is a ring trying to agitate disturbances on the street," said Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi. "And this is also what the terrorists and the murderers are doing with their explosions and assassinations." Spiritual Leader Questioned
The Government has taken a number of steps in its new campaign against the group. Hamed Aboul-Nasr, 81, the ailing spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, was called in for police questioning for two days this week, accused of writing anti-Government leaflets and inciting the lawyers' protest last month. Parliament has canceled the right of professors to elect the deans of university faculties, many of which are now dominated by the Brotherhood.
Mayors and village council members, many of whom belong to the Brotherhood, will be appointed by the Government rather than elected.
Brotherhood members, including most of the senior leaders around the country, have been arrested. A prominent clergyman was recently prevented from delivering a sermon to thousands of worshipers. And editors and reporters from Al Shaab, the paper of the Socialist Labor Party and a strong fundamentalist voice, have been hauled into court and imprisoned in recent weeks for articles critical of the Government.
The crackdown worries many who fear that if the Brotherhood leaders are driven underground or imprisoned, they could call on their followers to join the armed movements. Comparison to Algeria
"I never believed that the Brotherhood represented the moderate branch of the Islamic movement," said Hussein Ahmed Amin, Egypt's former Ambassador to Algeria and a prominent writer. "It was a matter of the distribution of roles. The Brotherhood preached a moderate line to get into Parliament and the Labor Party, which it came to dominate, as well as to appeal to those who wanted change, but deplored violence.
"But the origin of the trouble in Egypt is the same as in Algeria. The rise in militancy is caused by the failure to create a democratic system, by social and economic grievances, Government corruption, a lack of housing, unemployment, immigration from the rural areas to the cities and a lack of competing ideologies. The Islamic movement will not disappear with repression. And if the Government presses the Brotherhood too hard it could become more overtly radical and put all its energy into acts of terror."
Brotherhood leaders are not shy about echoing such a threat.
"If our supporters believe we cannot achieve our goals peacefully," said Mohammed Maamoun al-Hodaiby, the spokesman for the Brotherhood, "then they may turn to more radical means to achieve them.
"What do you expect?"
Source: New York Times
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