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Cindy Sheehan in Egypt for Islamists

by Mag­gie Michael
AP

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Anti-war activist Cindy Shee­han joined a protest Wednes­day seek­ing the sup­port of Egyp­t’s first lady in end­ing a mil­i­tary tri­al of mem­bers of the coun­try’s largest Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tion.

Under the watch­ful eyes of dozens of black-clad and hel­met­ed anti-riot police, some 50 heav­i­ly veiled wives and chil­dren of 40 senior mem­bers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood detained for the past year, gath­ered in front of the head­quar­ters of first lady Suzanne Mubarak’s Nation­al Coun­cil Women car­ry­ing ban­ners call­ing for their release.

“I am here to protest the tri­al of civil­ians in front of a mil­i­tary tri­bunal as this is a vio­la­tion to inter­na­tion­al law,” said Shee­han, who gained fame in the U.S. for her sit-in out­side Pres­i­dent Bush’s Texas ranch fol­low­ing the death of her son in Iraq.

“As a moth­er of a son who was killed in the war, I pre­sent­ed a let­ter to Ms. Suzanne Mubarak to real­ize how those women and chil­dren are suf­fer­ing.”

The street protest was rare in Egypt where author­i­ties ban most signs of pub­lic dis­sent.

One woman car­ried a sleep­ing infant in her arms along with a poster read­ing “Father, I miss you.”

In Decem­ber 2006, the gov­ern­ment engaged in a wide-rang­ing crack­down against the Broth­er­hood, the coun­try’s largest oppo­si­tion force—which holds one-fifth of the seats in the parliament—targeting in par­tic­u­lar busi­ness­men known to finan­cial­ly sup­port the group.

In Feb­ru­ary 2007, Pres­i­dent Hos­ni Mubarak ordered 40 of the orga­ni­za­tion’s mem­bers to be tried by a mil­i­tary tri­bunal on charges of mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism. The court’s ver­dict is expect­ed Feb. 26.

Accord­ing to the Broth­er­hood, 3,245 mem­bers of their orga­ni­za­tion were arrest­ed in 2007.

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