Date: Feb 16, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Prominent Egyptian Islamist critic arrested ahead of vote Reuters CAIRO: Egyptian security forces detained a former Islamist presidential candidate Wednesday for alleged contacts with the banned Muslim Brotherhood, the state news agency MENA said, the latest figure to be arrested ahead of the elections. MENA said State Security prosecutors ordered the arrest of Abdel-Moneim Abu al-Fotouh and several leaders of his Strong Egypt party a day after he returned from London where he had given interviews critical of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. The party members were later released. But Abu al-Fotouh remained in custody and was referred to the public prosecutor Thursday, judicial sources said. Sisi is almost guaranteed to clinch a second term in the presidential election slated for March 26-28. He was elected in 2014, a year after Islamist President Mohammad Morsi was ousted by the military. The upcoming election has been panned by rights groups after a number of competitors called off their campaigns, citing intimidation and a top challenger was arrested. The only supposed challenger still on the ballot previously backed Sisi. Abu al-Fotouh, who was a leading presidential contender in the first election after the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, was among the first of several high-profile Egyptians to call last month for a boycott of the coming vote. Strong Party member Abdel-Rahman Haridy told Reuters that security forces in civilian clothing arrived at Abu al-Fotouh’s suburban Cairo home, shortly after a meeting of party leadership began, to arrest him. Abu al-Fotouh quit the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 to mount an independent bid for the presidency in 2012, and has distanced himself from the Islamist movement since then. Egypt banned the Brotherhood in 2013 after Morsi’s overthrow and has labeled it a terrorist organization. Abu al-Fotouh was detained days after an interview with Al-Jazeera Mubasher, a Qatar-based channel banned in Egypt, in which he blasted what he called the menacing atmosphere of the election campaign. He also accused Sisi of pulling the army into politics, failing to curb deadly attacks by Islamist militants and mismanaging the economy. “Any attempt from any president, whether Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi or those before or after him, to push the army to be an actor in the political process, I consider this a crime. We will not accept this as Egyptians,” he told Al-Jazeera. He was referring to a stern warning from Sisi to opponents last month that anyone looking to challenge his rule would have to do away with him and the army first. Abu al-Fotouh’s party deputy, Mohammad al-Qassas, was also detained last week and is being held pending an probe, according to the party’s Facebook page.