Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Leader arrested

Updated: 2013-07-05 07:30

(Agencies)

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"I look forward to parliamentary and presidential elections held with the genuine and authentic will of the people," Mansour said. "The youth had the initiative and the noblest thing about this glorious event is that it was an expression of the nation's conscience and an embodiment of its hopes and ambitions. It was never a movement seeking to realize special demands or personal interests."

The revolution, he said, must continue, so "we stop producing tyrants."

Badie and el-Shater were widely believed by the oppositions to be the real power in Egypt during Morsi's tenure.

Authorities have also issued a wanted list for more than 200 Brotherhood members and leaders of other Islamist groups. The leader of the Brotherhood's political arm _ Freedom and Justice Party _ and another of Badie's deputies have been detained.  At least a dozen of Morsi's advisers and aides are also under house arrest.

The arrests and warrants against Brotherhood leaders signal a crackdown by the military against Islamists who have dominated the political scene in Egypt since the ouster in 2011 of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The Brotherhood's television station, Misr 25, has been taken off the air along with several TV networks run by Islamists. Morsi's critics have long accused the stations of sowing divisions among Egyptians and inciting against secularists, liberals, Christians and Shiite Muslims with their hard-line rhetoric.

Pushing aside Morsi, army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi announced Wednesday in a televised speech that the military had suspended the Islamist-drafted constitution, and that a civilian Cabinet of technocrat would run the country until new presidential elections are held. No date has been given.

Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the army chief on Wednesday evening. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square, where men and women danced, shouting, "God is great" and "Long live Egypt."

That fact that Egypt's interim president comes from the Constitutional Court adds a symbolic sting to Morsi's ouster.

The Islamist leader and his Muslim Brotherhood backers had repeatedly clashed with the judiciary, particularly the constitutional court, while in power, accusing the judges of being loyalists of former autocrat Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising, and saying they seek to undermine Egypt's shift to democratic rule.

The judges, meanwhile, had repeatedly challenged the Brotherhood's policies and what many in Egypt considered the group's march to power. The Constitutional Court dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament in June last year, saying it was illegally elected. It rejected a Morsi decree to reinstate the chamber.

Even with an interim leader now in place, Egypt remains on an uncertain course following Morsi's ouster, and the possibility of further confrontation still looms. Beyond the fears over violence, some protesters are concerned whether an army-installed administration can lead to real democracy.The Muslim Brotherhood's supreme leader has been arrested in a coastal city and flown to Cairo on a military helicopter, security officials said on Thursday, the most high profile move by the military in a crackdown against the Islamic group from which ousted president Mohammed Moris hails.

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