CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood reiterated their rejection of violence Thursday as they continued to come under attack over a miltia-type demonstration staged by students earlier this month. The Muslim Brotherhood reject violence, said the deputy leader of the opposition Islamist movement s parliamentary group, Hussein Ibrahim, in a statement.
The statement was issued after a meeting between Ibrahim and a delegation of European lawmakers led by Italian socialist MEP Pasqualina Napoletano. The Islamist group, which controls a fifth of the Egyptian parliament, has been in hot water since student members of the movement paraded on a university campus wearing black hoods and bandanas. MPs from President Hosni Mubarak s ruling National Democratic Party earlier this week accused the brotherhood of giving paramilitary training to its youth and warned the government would respond with an iron fist. More than 100 Islamist students and teachers have been detained in a major crackdown launched by the security forces in the aftermath of the campus demonstration. The Muslim Brotherhood, whose ideology has spawned many Islamist groups in the region, renounced violence decades ago and has insisted the students acted on their own behalf.
