Outlawed Islamic group in legal victory

An outlawed Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has achieved a landslide victory in elections to the Board of the Egyptian Bar Association.

A judicial committee which supervised the election said that candidates backed by the Brotherhood and its allies had won twenty of the board's twenty-four seats.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed since 1954, and many of its leaders are in jail.

But correspondents say that it remains a powerful force in Egyptian politics, having won seventeen seats in last year's parliamentary elections -- more than any other opposition group.

The Brotherhood says it is aiming to establish an Islamic state in Egypt by peaceful means.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service