• December 20, 2006
  • 19 minutes read

Statement From the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Statement From the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

Our group is facing a fierce campaign aiming to distort its image, frighten people and incite them against it, with the participation of official media and security services, after some of Al-Azhar University students carried out a karate and kung fu performance inside the university, something that we denounced and rejected before anybody else. These students felt they committed a mistake and issued a statement in which they apologized to their university, professors and their colleagues, and they distributed it on all newspapers and media outlets; however, most of them did not publish it, and continued their campaign of distortion against us, leading to the arrest of sixteen MB senior members, university teaching staff members and nearly 140 of Al-Azhar students and not over yet.
 
To avoid the media’s war drums from blurring the memory of the nation, we should mention the following:
 
– We adopt a gradual, peaceful apparoach for reform which is based on Islam, and is concerned with building up the human being; the family; reform the society including all its political, economic, social, cultural and educational aspects, in simultaneous and interwined paths. We belive reform should be based on moral principles in all aspects of life; that’s, truthfulness, honesty, fairness, integrity, sacrifice and faithfulness should be the mainstay of any activity in addition to freedom, justice, equality and truth. Therefore, we have declared that we beleive that the people must be the source of authorities and that we believe in political plurality the right to form parties, a peaceful circulation of power, integrity of elections, judicial independence, separation between powers, press freedom, and we completely rejected the use of violence and terrorism as a method to achieve political or any other targets.
 
– Our words have always been followed by actions; the MB contributed to ending many sectarian tensions, resisted extremism and violence, protecting tens of thousands of young men from falling in this abyss. We condemned all crimes of violence, assassination and terrorism, demanding to study its causes and treat them, seeking to realize a national reconciliation, and stopping random detentions, tortures and fake trials. We stressed on the right of civilians to appear before natural justice, respect law and court rulings, human rights. We focused our efforts to treat poverty and unemployment and achieve a social solidarity, and fighting corruption. We participated in different political activities and the people gave us their trust and elected us in syndicates, teaching staff clubs, the People’s Assembly, and students unions. Instead of making the race focus on winning people’s support in an honest competition; the government and unfair secularists launched a relentless campaign against us to spearate and sow seditions between us and people, this campaign consisted of the following:
 
1- Denying us a legal recognition, describing us as an outlawed group so that they can oppress us whenever they want, curbing our movement and activities, denying us our rights as Egyptian citizens and as a big popular and political group.
2- Using the voting bloc of the National Democratic Party- which we all know how this party won it- in enacting or extending legislations to harrass, harm and do injustice against it, like the emergency law, the law of parties, the parties committee, the parties court, the law of syndicates, press and judiciary, and others.
3- Postponing the Municipalities elections for two years to prevent the group from competing with the NDP although every one agree that the current municipalities are corrupt.
4- Stopping the elections of the professional syndicates and the teaching staff clubs in universities fearing our victory in them.
5- Rigging the elections of the Chambers of Commerce and Labour Unions after striking off our candidates and arresting others.
6- Jailing a big number of our members- nearly 25000- during the last 10 years, including high school students and elders, to the extent of that prisons wern’t empty of MB members from 1992 until now.
7- Torturing a considerable number of MB members inside state security headquarters; one of them was martyred.
8- Trying more than 150 Muslim Brotherhood leaders before five martial courts and sentencing most for 3-5 years in prison without committing any crime.
9- Rigging the last People’s Assembly election in a number of constituencies, and using bribes, bullying and police to beat and harrass voters and some judges to the extent of killing a number of citizens and injuring many; however, 88 Muslim Brotherhood candidates won seats, and Dr Nazif acknowledged blocking 40 other Mb candidates from winning through election rigging.
10- Using the so called national television and press in launching distortive campaigns, lies and fabrications against us without allowing us to respond or clarify the truth.
11- Blocking airing the People’s Assembly sessions on the television, as was the case in the previous parliament targeting obscuring- from the media- the activities and performance of our eighty eight MPs.
12- Standing behind preventing issuing (Afaq Arabiyah) newspaper which was one of our media outlets.
13- Shutting down a number of companies and commercial activities and confiscating whatever money they find in the the houses of the MB members when they arrest them.
14- Transfering thousands of teachers and mosque imams to administrative jobs.
15- Imposing a travel ban on a big number of MB members through administrative decisions without having any court ruling, and even aginst court rulings.
16- Beating peaceful demonstrators who took to streets in solidarity with the judges, by karate groups affiliated with the central security forces, and arresting some others some, the latest released over this issue was Dr. Mohamed Mursi and Dr. Essam El-Erian after staying seven months behind bars.
 
– All this show the extent of injustice and persecution which we are facing, however, we were and are still patient and tolerant, and we open our minds and hearts for dialogue, and reach out to others to cooperate concerning the common good and we never thought about any retaliation.
 
– Then came the students issue; MB students- who were prevented from running for the student unions, and those whose nominations were accepted, their names were struck off before the beginning of the elections; consequently, no one succeeded except those the security approved; the other students had to hold parallel elections to establish free student unions which aren’t controlled by the whims of the administration and the security; a university used bullies armed with with bladed weapons to assault and beat the students inside the university under the eyes of the university guard who only watched the aggression and did not intervene; a number of MB students were injured and were sent to hospital, and a number of free union students were referred to disciplinary boards and some of them were dismissed from the university for a month, something that enraged their colleagues and made them stage a sit in protesting at this dismissal; during the sit-in, the aforementioned performance that we condemned and for which the students apologized took place. Does this deserve all this hubub, incitement and fabrications?
 
As for our stance, we will follow the example of our messenger- peace be upon him- who face severe harm then he was so patient and he prayed for his people, and we will respond to the saying of our late Imam Hassan Al Banna : Treat people like trees, when they throw stones at us, we will respond with fruits”, and we repeat with him his saying:” and we wold like our people to know also that we love them more than ourselves and that we wish to sacrifice our souls for their honour, glory, dignity, religion and their aspirations, we work for people only for God’s sake more than we work for ourselves; we are for- our belover brothers- and we will never be against you”.
 
(And whosoever putteth his trust in Allah, He will suffice him. Lo! Allah bringeth His command to pass. Allah hath set a measure for all things. ) ( at-Talaq “the divorce”: 2 – 3 )
Peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you
 
Mohamed Mahdi Akef
The Muslim Brotherhood Chairman
Cairo on : 28 Dhal Hijjah 1427 (Hijri)
              19 December 2006 AD

 

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