Egypt: some 35 Muslim brothers members released

The Supreme State Security Court in Egypt on Tuesday decided to release 35 members of leaders and members of the banned Ikhwan al-Muslimin (Muslim brother) organization following one and a half years of their arrest without trial.

In a surprising and sudden decision, the chairman of the court judge Asem Abdul Hameed Naser released the group which is led by Muhammad al-Sayed Habib, member of al-Irshad (the guidance) council in the group, which is the highest commission in the organization after the security forces had brought the group into the court in order to renew their reserve imprisonment period imposed on them since March 2001.

Nasser gave no reasons for his decision to release the detainees which had been investigated with the state security under charges of being members in a banned group, formed as a violation to the law and seeks to change the regime, besides other accusations on recruiting new members and provoking to carry out demonstrations against the state.

The chairman of the defense committee for the Muslim brothers detainees lawyer Abdul Menem Maqsoud described the decision as " fair and an expression of the rejection of the Egyptian judiciary to the political pressures." He called on other judges to do the same to release more than 300 members of the group's activists, held in the Egyptian jails. The highest number of detainees since the recent people's assembly ( parliament) elections in Egypt. N.