Saudis Put Terrorist Label on Muslim Brotherhood
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, NYT, MARCH 7, 2014
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia on Friday declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, escalating a new campaign against the group across the region with a sweeping ban that imposes lengthy prison sentences for even expressing sympathy with it.
The Saudi decree equates the Brotherhood, which has long denounced violence, with widely designated terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Syria-based Nusra Front. The inclusion of the Brotherhood appeared to signal the beginning of a Saudi effort to eradicate the group, demonstrating the deepening polarization that is spreading across the region after the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, last summer.
The decree was the Saudi monarchy’s latest gesture of support for attempts by the new military-backed government in Egypt to crush the Brotherhood. But it was also a pointed message to a neighboring Persian Gulf state, Qatar, which has provided refuge and support to Egyptian Brotherhood leaders since the takeover. Consistently sympathetic coverage of the Brotherhood by the Qatari-owned news network Al Jazeera has outraged Cairo and the other gulf monarchies.
The Saudi royal family has always viewed the Muslim Brotherhood with apprehension, fearing its rival blend of Islam and politics as well as its avowed embrace of democracy. The Saudi government prefers to align itself with a more puritanical approach to Islam, Salafism, which teaches heavy deference to Muslim rulers. But Brotherhood members living in Saudi Arabia have not usually felt the need to hide their affiliation for fear of arrest.
(More here.)
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia on Friday declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, escalating a new campaign against the group across the region with a sweeping ban that imposes lengthy prison sentences for even expressing sympathy with it.
The Saudi decree equates the Brotherhood, which has long denounced violence, with widely designated terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Syria-based Nusra Front. The inclusion of the Brotherhood appeared to signal the beginning of a Saudi effort to eradicate the group, demonstrating the deepening polarization that is spreading across the region after the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, last summer.
The decree was the Saudi monarchy’s latest gesture of support for attempts by the new military-backed government in Egypt to crush the Brotherhood. But it was also a pointed message to a neighboring Persian Gulf state, Qatar, which has provided refuge and support to Egyptian Brotherhood leaders since the takeover. Consistently sympathetic coverage of the Brotherhood by the Qatari-owned news network Al Jazeera has outraged Cairo and the other gulf monarchies.
The Saudi royal family has always viewed the Muslim Brotherhood with apprehension, fearing its rival blend of Islam and politics as well as its avowed embrace of democracy. The Saudi government prefers to align itself with a more puritanical approach to Islam, Salafism, which teaches heavy deference to Muslim rulers. But Brotherhood members living in Saudi Arabia have not usually felt the need to hide their affiliation for fear of arrest.
(More here.)
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