Egyptian authorities arrest official in Muslim Brotherhood Sunday

CAIRO, Egypt -- Egyptian authorities arrested the fourth-highest official in the powerful Muslim Brotherhood early Sunday, one of 25 members of the outlawed movement picked up in a major crackdown ahead of a referendum on presidential election rules the group opposes.\nMahmoud Ezzat, secretary-general of the Islamist group and head of its Cairo operations, is the highest-profile Brotherhood arrest since 1996, said a police official. Egyptian police policy is to only speak to reporters on condition of anonynmity.\nEzzat and 24 others were picked up in dawn sweeps of several provinces, police and Brotherhood officials said. Brotherhood deputy leader Mohammed Habib confirmed Ezzat's arrest. Three of the others also held senior positions within the banned group, which advocates the peaceful establishment of an Islamic state.\nProsecutors have begun questioning the detainees on charges of membership in -- or in the case of Ezzat and the three others, leadership of -- a banned group and organizing demonstrations without a permission from the government.\n"The arrest is an escalation against the Brotherhood and a message to the group that no one is beyond arrest," Abdel-Galil el-Sharnoubi, editor of the group's Web site, said.\nThe Egyptian regime "is arresting the leading figures who are capable of moving the people in the street to boycott the \nreferendum. Arrests, at this time, affect the people stance," he added.\nWednesday's referendum allows Egyptians to approve or reject changes to the constitution that will allow the nation's first multi-party presidential elections in \nSeptember.\nOpponents of President Hosni Mubarak, including the Brotherhood, have urged a boycott of the referendum, saying the changes will provide little more than window dressing to the current yes-no, one candidate system.\nMubarak, who has served 24 years as president, has always been handily reinstalled in referendums in which there were no other candidates. The Brotherhood commands a substantial following in Egypt and it alone among Mubarak's opponents could prove a tough challenger.\nMore than 800 members of the outlawed Brotherhood have been detained in connection with May protests in several Egyptian provinces, part of a growing opposition campaign for truly democratic political reform.\nAt times, the Brotherhood has protested alongside secular opposition groups that also have complained steps toward multi-candidate presidential elections don't go far enough.\nEzzat, 60, was arrested under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser who banned the Brotherhood in 1954. Arrested in 1965 during the days of harsh crackdowns on a group that sought to overthrow the regime and replace it with an Islamic system, Ezzat was sentenced to 10 years in prison.\nHe was released in 1974. By then, the Brotherhood was heading toward peaceful advocacy of an Islamic system for Egypt.\nEzzat was arrested in 1995 -- once again an election year -- for his activities, and he was sentenced by a military court to five years in prison.