Egypt Bans Muslim Brotherhood

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Taylor Berman

09/23/13 10:25AM

Filed to: egypt

On Monday, an Egyptian court issued a ruling that banned the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters applied the ruling to the Islamist group's non-governmental group, its recently formed political party, and any groups affiliated with or receiving financial support from the organization.

The ruling also ordered the immediate "confiscation of all the group's money, assets, and buildings” and for a panel to be formed to distribute those funds until any appeals have been heard.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed for most of its 85 year existence, but in 2011 – after Hosni Murbarak was removed from power – it was allowed to exist openly and quickly rose to power, with political efforts culminating with the June 2012 election of Mohammed Morsi as Egypt's president. But the after last summer's military coup, Egyptian authorities again cracked down on the group and arrested its leader, Mohamed Badie.

Naturally, members of the Muslim Brotherhood weren't thrilled by the decision. From the Associated Press:

"This is totalitarian decision," leading group member Ibrahim Moneir said in an interview with Qatari-based Al-Jazeera Mubashir Misr TV. "You are losers and it (the Brotherhood) will remain with God's help, not by the orders by the judiciary of el-Sissi," he added, referring to military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who led the overthrow of Morsi on July 3.

[Image via AP]

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11

burlivesleftnut Taylor Berman 09/23/13 10:33AM

This is great news.

6

KRAYDIO burlivesleftnut 09/23/13 10:39AM

No it's not.

burlivesleftnut KRAYDIO 09/23/13 10:42AM

How so?

KatieInAtlanta burlivesleftnut 09/23/13 10:46AM

Because Egypt is esssentially going back to being a dictatorship. "We don't like you, so you're banned."

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burlivesleftnut KatieInAtlanta 09/23/13 10:48AM

Was it a democracy before Mubarak? Yes. The outlaw of Muslim Brotherhood began 85 years ago.

8

phunkshun Taylor Berman 09/23/13 10:29AM

Can't say that I'm really going to shed a tear over this. As long as they don't blame us for it, I think we're basically ahead at this point.

2

cepalg phunkshun 09/23/13 11:13AM

Democracy: alright in theory, but sometimes people who don't like Americans get elected, and we really can't be having that.

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dphuff cepalg 09/23/13 11:32AM

This isn't about the Brotherhood not liking Americans (tho' I'm sure they don't). It's about Egypt banning an organization that wants to overthrow the gov't and turn the place into a repressive theocracy. I don't blame the Egyptian gov't one, damn bit...

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cepalg dphuff 09/23/13 11:37AM

It's a curious thing. When the democratically elected government gets overthrown in a military coup, the democratically elected government tends to want to undo the coup. I guess, if you have the memory of a goldfish, you could characterize that desire as 'wanting to overthrow the government.'

But, y'know, the military coup is from people who we like, and the people being couped are people we don't, so that pesky "will of the people" thing has to be set aside in favor of ~hard decisions~

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FatherRigatoni cepalg 09/23/13 11:40AM

People who don't like americans, gays, women, christians, Muslims of other different stripes, voting, atheists, jews, peaceful demonstrations, differences of opinion, Europe and bacon.

7

Montauk Monster Taylor Berman 09/23/13 11:21AM

In its statement, the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape of a stranger.
A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal “partnership” with her, the group declared. Daughters should not have the same inheritance rights as sons. Nor should the law cancel “the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception” — a reform in traditional Islamic family law that was enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak and credited to his wife, Suzanne.

From March of this year. Fuck these clowns. Frankly, good on Egypt for nipping that shit in the bud.

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family expert, said of the group’s general approach, speaking in a recent seminar for women training to become marriage counselors. Even if a wife were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in what happened to her.”

Great politics. Very cool.

Hubaballoo Montauk Monster 09/23/13 12:36PM

So, which one of the progressive, pro-feminist, Egyptian parties do you support? Or should Egypt just remain under military dictatorship until they develop the same social values as the liberal democracies of the Global North? Shouldn't the United States stop pretending to support democracy as a universal value if we don't really believe that it can be applied universally? I'm not pretending that I have the answers. I'm just wondering what you would suggest since you seem pretty confident in your assessment of the situation.

1

sigmaoctans Hubaballoo 09/23/13 02:39PM

I don't know, take your pick:

Egyptian Social Democratic Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_…)

Egyptian Bloc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_…)

Socialist People's Alliance Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist…

The Free Egyptians Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Egyp…)

Just a handful of the leftist or secular centrist parties that exist in Egypt. Just because the intolerant, illiberal theocrats won the last election doesn't mean that there isn't a polity in Egypt that supports secular, social democracy.

Perry Downing Hubaballoo 09/23/13 03:07PM

I don't think that's what's going on here. I think it's that they're nipping a Nazi-like movement in the bud before they get so much control they can't be stopped. I'm pretty sure that by 1936 the Wehrmacht wished they'd taken care of Hitler/Goering/Himmler in 1933.

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Hubaballoo Perry Downing 09/23/13 03:46PM

Comparisons to Nazis, in this case, are hyperbole in my opinion. Just because the nations of that region oppose the Zionist project doesn't make them de facto Nazis. It's unfortunate that opposition to Zionism has led some Arab groups to embrace anti-Semitic tracts originally developed by Christians in Europe, but this does not relegate all resistance to Zionism to the level of Nazism.

I think the military coup was probably a good idea, but I don't see how banning the MB altogether is anything but tyranny considering that over half the population supported that organization or their coalition partners in the last democratic election.

The educated city dwellers oppose the MB and the less educated and more socially conservative rural population supports them. Is the best the solution this problem the total quashing of rural conservatives and their perspective? If so, can we please apply this in the United States?

14

MyLeftHoof Taylor Berman 09/23/13 11:34AM

I equate the Muslim Brotherhood to the Nazi party. People seem to forget that they are old associates (MB was distributing Mein Kampf and Protocols of the Elders of Zion back in the 1930-40s). Germany is an extremely functional democracy despite the blanket ban on National Socialism. Some movements are toxic to society and they need to be treated as such.

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Muscato MyLeftHoof 09/23/13 11:41AM

This.

This only thing that's surprising about the MB's brief foray into being a state-recognized group - and for a while the state itself - is how very, very bad they were at concealing their intention to fully Islamicize the country. If they'd been better at dissembling or even (but this they can't, given the MB mindset) actually tempering their resolve and working with a range of partners, they'd still be a legal entity and very likely still in power.

stupidideas MyLeftHoof 09/23/13 01:43PM

Im not sure why anyone would trust them... anyone who advocates putting religion in power is playing a fools game. And people forget that Hamas was founded as an Offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bipedal Hominid MyLeftHoof 09/23/13 01:56PM

This is way too simplistic a way to approach the Muslim Brotherhood. Judging the actions of a political party from 70 years ago isn't exactly founded. By that logic we should continue to punish Democrats for endorsing segregation, and we should have punished the Bush family for several generations because Prescott Bush profited from the embargo against Nazi Germany. The Muslim Brotherhood has changed dramatically since its founding and can't really be judged by its actions 3 generations ago. Granted, they aren't the warmest fuzziest group who loves everyone, and favors equal rights for women, but comparing them to the Nazis is way off base. They disavowed violence as a political tool in the 1970s. Morsi advocated for a peaceful relationship with Israel. Al Quaida hated them. Their stated political philosophy is pretty benign and leans strongly pacifist.

I'm not arguing that they're all wonderful people, but they've been unfairly demonized in the Western media as some crazy yahoos bent on murder and destruction. They shouldn't be banned as a political party, they should have been judged in an election based on their poor performance governing the country. They would have lost the election in a landslide and someone else would have come to power. We can't demand that the Middle East become democratic and then balk at who the choose and support their ouster. It's undeniably hypocritical and leads to further disintegration of our already strained relationship with the populace of the region.

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ARP2 MyLeftHoof 09/23/13 02:37PM

Some movements have been able to make that transition. Sinn Fein was able to become a somewhat (fully?) legitimate political party within Ireland, but it did mean tempering the whole violence and terrorism thing.