Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Cairo: Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood is facing “existential challenge” after the Islamist group has plunged Egypt into violence, Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said Friday.
In late 2013, Egyptian authorities designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist group, blaming it for a series of deadly attacks in the country after the army’s ouster of president Mohammad Mursi, a senior official in the group.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is living an existential, historic challenge in sisterly Egypt,” Gargash tweeted.
“The basis of the crisis is [the group’s] adoption of violence against the state and society,” he added.
Gargash described the Brotherhood’s engagement in violence as a “desperate” option resulting from Egyptians’ repudiation of the group’s one-year rule.
In July 2013, the army deposed Mursi following mass street protests against his rule. Egypt has since experienced a spate of deadly militant attacks involving groups linked to the Brotherhood.
“The Brotherhood’s use of violence in their political battle has spawned unprecedented hate against the group in the Egyptian street,” the official said.
While hundreds of the group’s leaders and followers have been jailed in different cases related to violence in Egypt, others have escaped abroad where they use loyal media to assail the Egyptian government.
Gargash said the group, created in 1928, is suffering “imbalance” and fragmentation.
“Obviously, the popular rejection of the Brotherhood and their adoption of violence and terrorism will not be eclipsed by the media fanfare financed from abroad,” he added in another tweet.
Egypt has repeatedly accused Qatar and Turkey, which are staunch backers of the Brotherhood, of harbouring wanted Islamists and demanded their handover to face justice in the homeland.
