CAIRO
Security forces on Tuesday stormed a school and a local charity run by the Muslim Brotherhood in the Upper Egyptian province of Beni Sueif, eyewitnesses said.
A joint army-police force raided the two buildings and arrested everyone inside, including school principal Fahim Ismail, eyewitnesses said.
Thugs working in tandem with security forces, meanwhile, were allowed to ransack the building, witnesses added.
Army personnel also raided a radiology center run by a senior Brotherhood member in the city, destroying all of the center's equipment in the process.
"The raid left important equipment damaged, including a scintigraphy scanner, the only device of its kind in northern Upper Egypt," center owner Nehad al-Qasem told Anadolu Agency.
The Muslim Brotherhood-led National Alliance for the Defense of Legitimacy described the raids as "oppressive practices by the coup authorities."
In the Nile Delta province of Menoufiya, unidentified assailants and residents attacked shops owned by Brotherhood members following news that 25 policemen – 21 of them from the province – had been killed in a militant attack in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Egypt's military-backed authorities have waged a crackdown on the Brotherhood since the July 3 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader himself.
Last week, security forces violently dispersed two major sit-ins by pro-Morsi protesters in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square and Giza's Nahda Square, leaving hundreds of people dead and thousands injured.
Dozens of the group's leaders and mid-ranking members have been taken under custody nationwide in recent days.
Earlier on Tuesday, group leader Mohamed Badie was arrested near Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. He faces charges of incitement to violence in connection with clashes outside the group's Cairo headquarters earlier this year in which nine people were killed.
The Muslim Brotherhood insists that the charges against it and its members are fabricated and politically motivated.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
