Egypt's unbowed opposition

CAIRO: Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood joined talks with President Hosni Mubarak's embattled regime on Sunday, a historic turning point in relations between the state and the banned group.

The Brotherhood, which has been banned but tolerated for decades, is Egypt's strongest organised opposition group.

That Mubarak's camp is talking to its bitter foe is a sign of the opposition's mounting strength.

According to its website, the Muslim Brotherhood wants a raft of reforms, including release of activists detained during the protests shaking the country; immediate investigations of all responsible for corruption; and freedom to form assemblies to express demands and opinions.

It also wants equal opportunities for all political parties; freedom of the press; the formation of a national coalition transitional government; guarantees of transparent parliamentary elections; guarantees for peaceful protests and the immediate end of emergency laws.

Though it has adopted a low profile in the massive protests that have rocked President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign, it is sure to be a major force in any post-Mubarak Egypt, especially a democratic one, although it has a divided opinion about the role of women and Christians in political life, according to a non-binding party manifesto circulated in 2008.

It has been officially banned since the 1950s but it counts hundreds of thousands of members and operates a vast network of social and religious outreach programs across the country.

Founded by schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928 as a grass-roots movement opposed to colonialism and Zionism, the group has largely succeeded in its main goal of encouraging Egyptians to embrace Islam in public life.

At the same time it has alarmed Western governments and some of its secular rivals with its anti-Israel rhetoric and calls for a more Islamic state.

It has never clearly spelled out its vision for the country, with divisions among the group on what shape an Islamic state would take. But reformers within the movement have said they would like to see a civil state guided by Islamic mores.

The Brotherhood renounced violence decades ago and has called for democratic reforms and elections, insisting it would participate like any other political party.

Mubarak's regime has routinely arrested hundreds of its members and curtailed its political activities, though the group managed to win 88 seats in 2005 parliamentary elections in which its candidates ran as independents under the slogan "Islam is the solution."

It boycotted the second round in latest elections held in November and December after failing to win a single seat, accusing the government of violence and vote-rigging.

But it remains active in mosques and universities, and its charity programmes have won it a loyal following among the country's poor.

It initially distanced itself from the latest protests and has since played at most a supporting role in a mass movement that appears to be led by youth with little interest in the country's formal politics.

In the group's earlier days it was more radical, and in the 1940s was implicated in a string of assassinations, including that of Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Noqrashi in 1948, who was killed following a crackdown on the group.

Egypt's secular nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser ruthlessly suppressed the group after an assassination attempt in 1954, jailing and torturing thousands of its members.

The crackdown led many one-time Muslim Brothers to chart a more radical path than that followed by the movement as a whole.

However, the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda have long been bitter rivals, with Al-Qaeda criticising the Brotherhood's participation in elections and the Brothers condemning attacks on civilians in Egypt and elsewhere.

Since its founding, the Brotherhood has inspired branches in several Middle Eastern countries and gained followers in the West, but the different groups' activities vary, usually according to their political circumstances.

In Jordan a Muslim Brotherhood franchise, the Islamic Action Front, openly competes in parliamentary elections and regularly holds peaceful protests, which on Sunday led to it being offered a role in the new government currently being assembled. The moderate group rejected the offer.