Egypt to Try Fundamentalists in Military Court : Mideast: Targets of stepped-up campaign against Muslim extremists include many attorneys and physicians. Abetting terrorism is among charges.

Forty-nine Egyptians, many of them doctors, lawyers and professors, will go on trial in a military court today as part of a stepped-up government campaign against the movement to make Egypt an Islamic state.

The defendants are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist group formed during the monarchy in 1928. The organization disavows violence, but its objectives dovetail with those of extremist groups trying to topple secular governments across the Arab world.

Human rights organizations already have criticized the decision to try the men in military court, which Egypt traditionally has done only with extremists accused of terrorist acts. The charges against the Brotherhood defendants include financing terrorist groups and belonging to an illegal party--but apparently not terrorist attacks.

Hassan Alfi, minister of the Interior, told local journalists last week that the defendants had been referred to a military court “because they are involved in terrorism and we have documents and other evidence.”

He said trial procedures needed to be expedited, something a military tribunal could do, to reduce the threat to national security that the Brotherhood poses.

Although the Brotherhood has been officially banned since 1954, its existence generally has been tolerated by the government. Members were even allowed to run for Parliament in 1988 if associated with other parties. Not until 15 months ago did the government link the organization with terrorism.

In recent years, the Muslim Brotherhood--whose membership numbers in the hundreds of thousands--has emerged as the largest political opposition movement in Egypt, and some critics contend that the government’s crackdown is a ploy to limit opposition in November’s parliamentary election.

The Brotherhood operates a wide range of social services, from health clinics to schools, and dominates some of the largest of Egypt’s 22 professional associations, including the medical, engineering and legal groups. It offers loans and low-cost medical and educational services and has a reputation for being honest with union funds.

Not all Brotherhood members support the goal of turning Egypt into an Islamic state--which would mean, among other things, banning alcohol, restricting women’s rights and adopting the Sharia, or Islamic law. But for many, the organization is the only political alternative to President Hosni Mubarak’s pro-Western National Democratic Party, which has long been guaranteed victory just by participating in an election.

The last time the Muslim Brotherhood faced trial in a military court was in 1966, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser accused its members of planning a coup.

Three of the defendants were executed and 200 were imprisoned.

Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, freed Brotherhood prisoners in the 1970s and let the group operate openly, hoping that it would act as a counterbalance to leftist opposition he faced.

Since 1992, the government has been at war with Islamic extremists who have targeted government officials and tourists alike. More than 810 people, mostly police and young militants, have been killed in the struggle, which now mostly operates in small villages in the Nile Delta, more than 100 miles south of Cairo.

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Egyptian officials claim--and Western diplomats agree--that the government has effectively defeated Islamic extremists. Many of their foot soldiers have been killed and their leaders arrested.

Authorities have released few details about today’s trial, which will be held before a three-judge panel at a military base 25 miles east of Cairo.

The head of the tribunal, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Abdullah, reportedly was targeted last year by militants wanting to avenge death sentences issued by other courts against their colleagues.