Security officials carried out the arrests late on Saturday in the Nile Delta Province of Beheira, detaining former lawmaker Gamal Heshmat as part of the group, Mohammad Habib said. While members of his Islamist group are periodically detained, Habib believes that the latest wave of detentions could be linked to next year’s parliamentary elections in which the Brotherhood is planning to run. This is another attempt by authorities to distance the Muslim Brotherhood from Egyptian political life,” he said. “Right now we have no less than 250 members in jails. Some are being held while on trial, some are in preventative detention, some are in jail,” Habib added.
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