From The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report:
Qaradawi Urges Egyptian Brotherhood To Boycott Elections
Egyptian media has reported that Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi has said that he hoped that the Egyptian Brotherhood would boycott the upcoming Egyptian parliamentary elections. According to a report in Al-Masry Al-Youm:
Head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars Yusuf al-Qaradawi told the German DPA news agency on Monday that he hoped Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) opposition group would boycott Sunday’s parliamentary elections. “It is obvious that the opposition will receive only scraps from the Egyptian regime,” he said in reference to the elections, suggesting that the MB may have only opted to participate in the races in order to drum up popular support. “Otherwise, the regime would ban them from talking to the public,” added al-Qaradawi, who went on to urge all Egyptians to participate in the polls.
A post from yesterday reported that Ibrahim Al-Mounir, part of the international leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, also supported an election boycott.
Qaradawi, a virulent anti-Semite is often referred to here as the most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, an acknowledgement of his role as the de facto spiritual leader of the movement. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to lead the Egyptian Brotherhood after the death of the Supreme Guide. Based in Qatar, Sheikh Qaradawi has reportedly amassed substantial wealth through his role as Shari’ah adviser to many important Islamic banks and funds. He is also considered to be the “spiritual guide” for Hamas and his fatwas in support of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens were instrumental in the development of the phenomenon. A recent post has discussed a video compilation of Qaradawi’s extremist statements.
And this, related, also from The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report:
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Claims U.S., Israel, Egypt Fixed Egyptian Elections
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An Internet news portal is reporting on remarks made by the Supreme Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in which he accuses Israel and the U.S. of colluding to fix the 2005 elections in Egypt. According to the report:
The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, accused the United States and Israel of colluding with the Egyptian government in fixing the 2005 elections, in remarks published Saturday. Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the Supreme Guide of the group, told the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm that the Brotherhood had struck a deal with “a senior official,” whom he did not name, to release senior members of the group so they could run in the 2005 parliamentary elections. The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Egypt since 1954, but in 2005, members, running as independents, won 88 out of 454 seats in Egypt’s lower house of parliament. Akef said the official had told him that after the group’s strong performance in the first two rounds of voting, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had called former US President George W Bush to express his concerns about the possibility of a strong Brotherhood showing in parliament, and that Bush had conveyed both their concerns to President Hosny Mubarak. “In 2005, there were talks of a visit by Mubarak to the United States,” Akef told al-Masry al-Youm. “A senior official visited me and said, ‘Please don’t make any disturbances during that visit.’” “We met twice and agreed on many things, and I kept the promises I made with the security services,” he said. “The Brotherhood candidates started preparing, and all those imprisoned were released,” the 81-year-old opposition leader said. “I was surprised with the victory in the first and second rounds,” he said. “But someone told me that Sharon called Bush, who in return called Mubarak, and they told me not one (of our candidates) will win in the third round, although we were expecting at least 50 more seats,” said Akef.
In December 2007 Mr. Akef made virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic comments accusing “American Zionist tricks” of being responsible for Islamic sectarian violence and claiming that Al Qaeda was “an American invention.”
Recent posts have discussed the controversy arising from reports, now denied, of Mr. Akef’s imminent resignation.
And lastly, this, also related, also from The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report:
International Muslim Brotherhood Leader Advises Egyptian Brotherhood To Pull Out of Elections
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Egyptian media is reporting that the “international wing” of the Muslim Brotherhood is advising the Egyptian Brotherhood to withdraw from next week’s parliamentary elections. According to a report in Al Masry Al-Youm:
The international wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement has urged its Egyptian counterparts to withdraw from next weeks’ parliamentary elections due to an ongoing crackdown on the group’s parliamentary candidates by Egyptian security forces. “I advise them to withdraw from the contest,” said MB representative in Europe Ibrahim Mounir, who stressed that his opinion was merely a recommendation. Mounir went on to predict that Egypt’s parliament would be dissolved next year on grounds of “unconstitutional” election procedures. “So there’s little point in fielding candidates,” he said.
Mr. Mounir was charged by Egyptian prosecutors last April, along with a group of other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, with offenses involving money laundering and raising funds abroad for the Muslim Brotherhood .
The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood website refers to Mr. Munir as an Executive Bureau member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s International Organization while an Egyptian news report identifies him as the Secretary-General of the International Organization and one of its founders in 1982 as well as a spokesman for the Brotherhood in London. The latter Arabic language news report also provides some biographical detail on Mr. Munir who it says was sentenced to life imprisonment in in Egypt in the 1950′s in connection with the events following the attempt assassination of then Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Following his early release in 1975, the report says Mr. Munir traveled and worked in the Gulf States on behalf of the Brotherhood following which he applied for and was granted political asylum in the UK. Mr. Munir is also known to be the general supervisor of the London-based Muslim Brotherhood publication known as the ‘Risalat Al-Ikhwan’ (Muslim Brotherhood Message).
The International Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood (IMB) can be considered to be the international leadership of the global Muslim Brotherhood most closely tied to the Egyptian organization. In 2004, a London-based Arabic newspaper identified further members of the International Organization:
The international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood is an assembly of all national Brotherhood organizations, but its higher leadership is in the hands of the Egyptian organization represented in the guide and the Guidance Bureau. There are other leaders that help run the international organization, such as the Syrian Hasan Huwaydi, who is considered the third deputy of the guide, in addition to Faisal Mawlawi, leader of the Lebanese Brotherhood, Abd-Majid-Dhunaybat, controller-general of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and the Tunisian Rashid al-Ghannushi. The London-based Egyptian, Ibrahim Munir, takes care of coordination among the organization’s members in Europe. The leaders of the international organization have held their meetings with Egypt’s Brotherhood leaders in several European countries, as it is impossible to organize such meetings in Egypt, where the group is banned and targeted by security authorities.
It should be noted that the Muslim Brotherhood today has become a global network and that the Egyptian mother branch is not necessarily the most important part of the movement. Sheikh Youssef Qaradawi, close to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, is often referred to by the GMBDR as the most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood, an acknowledgement of his role as the de facto spiritual leader of the movement. In 2004, Qaradawi turned down the offer to lead the Egyptian Brotherhood after the death of the Supreme Guide stating only that
..he had consciously decided not to limit his scope of manoeuvre by tying himself ‘any movement which might constrain my actions, even if this is the Muslim Brotherhood under whose umbrella I grew and which I so defended…Would I, at the age of 77, accept what I turned down when I was 49?’
Since some of the leaders of the IMB are also closely tied to Qaradawi, Faisal Mawlawi for example, there may be overlap between the leadership structures of the IMB and Global Muslim Brotherhood but further research is need to clarify these relationships. A previous post details what is currently known about the IMB.
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