One demonstrator was killed and two injured Friday when Egyptian police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a pro-reform rally in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, the Muslim Brotherhood said. The casualties came hours after security forces detained four senior Brotherhood leaders in the latest of a wave of arrests that the opposition group says has netted more than 1,500 of its members in the past few days.Tariq Mahdi Ghannam, a 40-year-old teacher, "suffocated after inhaling tear gas fired by security forces," said Abdel-Moneim Mahmoud, a Brotherhood member who took part in Friday's rally. Interior Ministry sources confirmed the death but said the man had died of a heart attack. Witnesses said Ghannam died in a mosque to which he had been taken after security forces intervened to break up the demonstration of some 5,000 Brotherhood members in Mansoura. Two demonstrators were also injured by police rubber bullets, Mahmoud said.
Mahmoud said the authorities arrested, Issam Aryane, the leader of the movement, which has been banned since 1954 but still ranks as Egypt's leading opposition force and has stepped up its demands for reforms ahead of presidential and legislative polls. Aryane is also the official spokesman of the movement's supreme guide Mohammad Mehdi Akef.
Police also arrested Omar Darrag, president of Cairo University's lecturers' club, teacher Hamdi Shahin and Yasser Abdou, all of whom are Brotherhood leaders, said Mahmoud. The detained men stand accused of "preparing to hold banned demonstrations," he said, adding that police had been told about demonstrations to be held at several mosques in the capital Friday to show support for Palestinians.
Police reported 400 arrests in the past few days across the country with 350 Brothers placed in preventive detention for 15 days for having violated a ban on street protests and allegedly "wounding several officers and soldiers." The Brotherhood said as many as 1,546 of its followers had been arrested during and after its wave of pro-reform demonstrations Wednesday, but without giving details on the number of those placed in preventive detention.