Egyptian security forces Saturday arrested 42 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, the group's lawyer said, DPA reported.
Egyptian security forces routinely arrest members of the Brotherhood, which has been banned in Egypt for more than 50 years, but arrests of this scale are unusual.
The predawn detentions took place in at least five northern provinces. Those held included would-be candidates in campaigning for legislative elections scheduled to begin in April, Brotherhood lawyer Abdel-Menem Abdel-Maqsud said in a statement on the group's website.
Among them was former Brotherhood lawmaker al-Sayid Abdel-Hamid, sources in Egypt's domestic intelligence agency, State Security Investigations, told the Cairo daily al-Masry al-Youm.
The arrests followed the detention of 30 Brotherhood members after Friday prayers for protesting recent Israeli-Palestinian clashes at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, al-Masry al-Youm reported.
Brotherhood member Sabri Khalafallah, who occupies his seat in Egypt's parliament as an independent, was among those held at the Friday protest, but was released an hour later, the group said.
The arrest of a lawmaker, who should have parliamentary immunity, represents a "strange escalation" in the government's campaign against the Brotherhood, Abdel-Maqsud said.
"Those arrested are leaders whose activity during the election period security forces fear," the lawyer said.