A government review has found that membership of, association with or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism. However, the organisation will not be banned in the UK.
In a statement to parliament today David Cameron said the worldwide Islamic movement was “deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive.”
He said the Brotherhood desired political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law and to this day “characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral.”
He continued: “Parts of the Muslim Brotherhood have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism. Both as an ideology and as a network it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.
“It has stated its opposition to al-Qaida (AQ) but it has never credibly denounced the use made by terrorist organisations of the work of Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood’s most prominent ideologues.
“Individuals closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK have supported suicide bombing and other attacks in Israel by Hamas, an organisation whose military wing has been proscribed in the UK since 2001 as a terrorist organisation, and which describes itself as the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Moreover, despite the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s public condemnation of violence in 2012/13 and afterwards, some of their supporters have been involved in violent exchanges with the security forces and other groups.
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Media reports and credible academic studies indicate that in the past 12 months a minority of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt have engaged alongside other Islamists in violent acts. Some senior leaders have publicly reiterated the Muslim Brotherhood’s commitment to non-violence, but others have failed to renounce the calls for retribution in some recent Muslim Brotherhood statements.”
Cameron added that the Brotherhood had also sometimes characterised the UK as fundamentally hostile to the Muslim faith and had expressed support for “terrorist attacks conducted by Hamas.”
“Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities therefore run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs, ” he said.
The Prime Ministers said the government would keep under review the views that are promoted and activities that are undertaken by Muslim Brotherhood associates in the UK, in Arabic as well as English.
He also pledged to:
- refuse visas to members and associates of the Muslim Brotherhood who are on record as having made extremist comments.
- seek to ensure charities that have links to the Muslim Brotherhood are not misused to support or finance the Muslim Brotherhood instead of their lawful charitable purpose.
- enforce the EU asset freeze on Hamas.
Muslim Brotherhood reaction
The Brotherhood, the Middle East’s oldest Islamist movement and long Egypt’s main political opposition, said the review was neither fair nor based on credible evidence.
The group, which says it is committed to peaceful activism, said the British position suggested it backed the military’s overthrow of Morsi who was democratically elected president after the 2011 uprising.
The head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Foreign Relations desk, Yehia Hamed, said: “The Muslim Brotherhood does not accept the findings outlined in the Prime Minister’s statement. We do not accept that these conclusions can be based on credible evidence.
“The Muslim Brotherhood engaged in an open and honest way with Sir John Jenkin’s review. It was hoped that the British government would seek to reciprocate that engagement. It is now clear that the Prime Minister did not intend to carry out a fair review into the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Our lawyers had repeatedly requested a right to reply to any criticism that might be presented during the review process. This was in order to ensure that the information which would no doubt go on to form government policy was well informed and credible. This has been denied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“We note recent reports in the Guardian that the review was undertaken as a result of pressure by non-democratic regimes in the Middle East opposed to popular democratic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Today we learned from further reports that MI5 had advised against conducting the review as it would ‘prove fruitless.'”
And Amr Darrag, a member of the executive board of Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party, said the Prime Minister’s statement condemns millions of Muslims and non-Muslims across the world, many of whom are British citizens. He added that the Brotherhood would be challenging the process of the review and its findings in court.
“This is to fundamentally misinterpret the Middle East’s largest democratic organisation and misunderstand what is needed to bring democratic, peaceful and stable governance to the Middle East,” he said. “The Muslim Brotherhood has worked tirelessly to promote the rule of law and democracy in the Middle East. We are most concerned that the Prime Minister’s statement will afford comfort to those regimes in the region that abuse human rights in order to maintain their own autocratic rule.
