Egypt court bans Muslim Brotherhood
The group's supreme guide,Mohamed Badie and other leaders have been detained.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was banned from operating in the country on Monday by a court which also ordered seizure of the group’s assets,in a body blow to Islamists who have been demanding reinstatement of President Mohammed Morsi after his ouster by the powerful army.
“The court bans the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood organisation and its non-governmental organisation and all the activities that it participates in and any organisation derived from it,” said the presiding judge Mohammed al-Sayed.
The Cairo court also ordered the interim government to seize the Brotherhood’s funds and form a panel to administer its frozen assets until any appeal has been heard.
The administrative court gave the ruling after a lawsuit was filed by the leftist Tagammu Party to review the Islamist group’s status as a non-governmental organisation.
The court did not immediately make public the grounds for its ruling.
The ruling may be appealed and overturned by a higher court. A Brotherhood source was quoted as saying by Ahram Online that the verdict would be appealed within ten days.
“This is totalitarian decision,” leading group member Ibrahim Moneir said in an interview with Qatari-based Al-Jazeera Mubashir Misr TV.
The 85-year-old Islamist movement was banned by Egypt’s military rulers in 1954,but registered itself as an NGO in March 2013 in response to a court case brought by opponents who contested its legal status.
The Brotherhood also has a legally registered political
wing,the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP),which was set up in 2011 as a “non-theocratic” group after the uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak from power.
On September 2 this year,Egypt’s State Commissioners Authority,a body that advises the government on legal issues,recommended the Brotherhood’s dissolution after claims circulated of its links to armed militias.
The authority’s recommendations,which are non-binding,were made in accordance with an Egyptian law that prohibits
non-government organisations and institutions from forming paramilitary groups.
Egyptian authorities launched a crackdown against the group following the ouster of president Morsi,who hails from the group,by the military on July 3 after mass protests against him and the group.
Hundreds of people have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters demanding Morsi’s reinstatement.
The group’s supreme guide,Mohamed Badie,and most of its high and mid-level leaders like deputy supreme guide Khairat El-Shater and secretary general Ezzat Ibrahim have been detained. They face charges including incitement of violence against their opponents.
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