JURIST - Paper Chase: Egypt extends detentions of pro-reform demonstrators

[JURIST] Prosecutors in Egypt [JURIST news archive] on Tuesday added 15 days to the detention time for 185 people who have participated in pro-reform demonstrations since April. All but 21 of the detainees are members of the Muslim Brotherhood [movement website; FAS backgrounder]; most of the others belong to the opposition reform group Kifaya [party website, in Arabic; Wikipedia backgrounder]. Egyptian law allows detainees to be held without trial for up to six months. Some of the protesters, including all of the Kifaya members, have been jailed since April.

Protests have been organized primarily to support two judges who were put before a disciplinary panel [JURIST report] for revealing that some of their colleagues had allowed fraud [JURIST report] in last November's parliamentary elections, in which the Brotherhood made significant gains [JURIST report]. On Sunday, Egyptian police arrested [Aljazeera report] nine members of the Brotherhood, whom prosecutors will hold for 15 days for questioning. Since March, at least 650 Brotherhood members have been arrested in Egypt. AP has more.

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