Arrests, Property Seizures In Egypt

Press, Volume C, Issue 29651, 23 October 1961, Page 13

Arrests, Property Seizures In Egypt

(N-Z. Pres* Association—Copjnjhtj CAIRO, October 21. announced in Cairo tonight that it had taken a series of precautionary security measures, including the arrest and imprisonment of 43 people, “to safeguard the gains made by the revolution.”

Vice - President Zakaria Mohieddin, who made the announcement said that 40 of those detained were “reactionaries whose arrest was aimed at isolating them from any activity in the service of reaction.’’ the British United Press reported. Mohieddin also announced that the Government had put under sequestration the property of 167 people described as “reactionary capitalists who enslaved the people for their own benefit and were able with the help of their millions to recruit some opportunists and to bend the law to their will.” The Cairo newspaper, “Al Ahram” said today that the Egyptian Government was taking security measures to

Prevent any anti-State activity. The newspaper, “Bakhbar el Yom” said that President Naseer would soon issued a series of decrees laying down broad outlines of a revolutionary system of Government for a specified period of time. Most of the arrests were made immediately after President Nasser’s nation-wide broadcast last Monday in which he declared war on reactionaries and opportunists, saying that they had been responsible for the Syrian coup. It is believed that those detained include some former politicians, big businessmen, industrialists and landowners, who had been hard hit by President Nasser's socialisation programme depriving them of most of their property. Some observers believe the timing of the measures indicate the Government feared that events in Syria might encourage such disgruntled elements to cause trouble in Egypt.