Cairo, Egypt - Egyptian police are holding about 200 members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, detained before and during an attempt to protest outside parliament in favor of reform, the Brotherhood said Monday.
Police took 84 Brotherhood leaders from their homes on Sunday morning and picked up more than 150 demonstrators from the streets later in the day, Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef said in a statement.
The Brotherhood, founded in 1928, is one of the most influential Islamist political movements in the Arab world and probably the largest single opposition group in Egypt.
Thirty-four of the demonstrators have since been released, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said later Monday. A Brotherhood official confirmed that figure.
An interior ministry spokesman said police had detained 50 people altogether in connection with the protests.
Thousands of police armed with sticks and shields were deployed in central Cairo from early Sunday and prevented most of the Brotherhood supporters from reaching parliament.
But pockets of up to several hundred protested at other sites in the Cairo area, calling for an end to emergency laws and political and constitutional reforms.
In recent months, the authorities have allowed small public demonstrations by the Enough Movement, which wants to prevent President Hosni Mubarak from seeking a fifth six-year term or arranging a transfer of power to his son Gamal.
Akef said the Muslim Brotherhood, which was formally banned in the 1950s but continues to operate, had a right to express its opinion on constitutional change and political reform because of its long history and wide support across the country.
"So we were surprised Sunday ... that the center of Cairo was turned into a military barracks and a security arsenal, with tens of thousands of heavily armed troops," he added.
The human rights organization called on the authorities to release the detainees immediately and said that the police handling of the demonstration was a "danger signal" for the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in Egypt.
Analysts said the authorities took a tougher line against the Brotherhood because it is such a large organization, probably with hundreds of thousands of supporters.
"The security apparatus is afraid of the power of the Brotherhood. They own the political street," said Mohamed Alwan, a member of parliament from the liberal Wafd Party.
"The way to resist them is not to suppress them but by spreading freedom. Suppression leads to explosion," he added.