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Egyptian police arrested at least 28 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood group in the Nile Delta today, Brotherhood and security officials said.
Police arrested the activists in separate morning raids on their homes in the provinces of Sharqiya and Kafr el-Sheikh.
"They were arrested on suspicion of belonging to a banned organisation," a security official said.
Yesterday, a prosecutor charged two Brotherhood activists and a blogger campaigning for the permanent opening of Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza with "forming a criminal group belonging to (the Palestinian Islamist group) Hamas," a judicial source said.
Gamal Abdel Salam, one of the activists charged, heads the Egyptian doctor's syndicate relief committee, which has organised several relief convoys to the Gaza Strip that were blocked by Egyptian police.
Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas violently seized power there last year. The Rafah crossing, which Egypt has refused to open permanently, is the only passage to the coastal strip not controlled by Israel.
The Muslim Brotherhood is banned by the government but fielded independent candidates in 2005 parliamentary elections, winning a fifth of seats despite fraud and police intervention.
After the group's success in the election, in which it contested a limited number of seats, arrests of its supporters have increased. Police have arrested dozens of the Islamists in raids this year.
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