Do the members of the Muslim Brotherhood truly resort to terrorism and violence to achieve their goals? The best answer to this question lies in the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders themselves.
– Muhammad Abdullah Ch.
In March 2024, Egypt’s State Security Criminal Court sentenced eight leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to death. Among those sentenced were the 80-year-old Supreme Guide Dr. Mohammed Badie, Deputy Supreme Guide Mahmoud Ezzat, Dr. Mahmoud Beltagy, former Minister of Youth Affairs Osama Yassin, Safwat Hegazy, Assem Abdel-Maged, and Mohammed Abdel-Maksoud.
The allegations against these leaders include leading an illegal organization, interfering in government affairs, infringing upon citizens’ personal freedoms, endangering national security and social harmony, attempting to forcibly change the governmental system, attacking military and police installations, instigating violence, and spreading terror.
However, it’s important to note that these allegations and cases are based solely on one-sided police reports. The Egyptian judicial system is criticized for its age-old, powerless, non-transparent, and biased nature, where sentences are handed down based solely on unilateral police investigations.
It’s worth remembering that this is the third death sentence for the Supreme Guide. In addition to numerous previous imprisonment sentences, if all the sentences were added up, it amounts to 210 years in prison. Moreover, there are around 23 ongoing cases that, if convicted, could add another 85 years to their imprisonment.
Do the members of the Muslim Brotherhood truly resort to terrorism and violence to achieve their goals?
The best answer to this question lies in the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders themselves. During the days of the military coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, they faced heavily armed Egyptian military and police forces on the battlefield of Rabaa al-Adawiya, chanting, “Our peacefulness is stronger than bullets.”
Similarly, during the Friday of Rage protests in Tahrir Square, when the Supreme Guide’s young son, Engineer Ammar, was martyred, they displayed remarkable patience, endurance, and steadfastness, showing their commitment to peaceful struggle. Even when General Sisi’s coup regime turned Rabaa Square into a killing field for supporters of President Morsi, using tanks and armed forces to ruthlessly kill protesters, the Brotherhood leadership remained steadfast in their commitment to peaceful political struggle.
Even after the military coup on July 3, 2013, and their subsequent arrest and ten years of solitary confinement and life imprisonment, Dr. Mohammed Badie and his companions have not shown the slightest wavering in their steadfastness. They have endured all the difficulties of imprisonment with resilience, making it clear to the world that their political struggle has been, is, and will remain peaceful.
They endure with a smiling face and have made it clear to the world through their actions that their political struggle was peaceful, is peaceful, and will remain peaceful.
Who is the Supreme Guide?
Dr. Mohammed Badie, named among the top 100 Arab scientists in 1999, has already endured numerous years of incarceration in military prisons, making this experience familiar to him. In 1965, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, serving 10 years before being released in 1974. He then started teaching at Assiut University and later became a professor at Zagazig University, where he founded one of the best veterinary institutes in the Arab world.
He was arrested again in 1995 and sentenced to five years in prison by a military court, remaining in custody until 2003. Following President Mohamed Morsi’s overthrow by General Sisi’s leadership in a military coup on August 20, 2013, he was arrested again. This time, 48 cases were filed against him, and he has been in continuous detention since then.
The Muslim Brotherhood has categorically rejected the recent sentences as falling far short of justice and lacking even the slightest degree of transparency.
According to 13 human rights organizations in Egypt, including Human Rights Watch and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, “The Arab Spring” did not fulfill any of the fundamental demands of the Egyptian people. On the other hand, an authoritarian approach continues for the suppression of political freedoms and rights, and the economic crisis worsens day by day. The Sisi regime has adopted the worst and most brutal methods to suppress civil rights, with tight controls over civil society, opposition, and free media. Incidents of mistreatment of political prisoners in jails are common, with reports of deaths and suicides due to lack of medical treatment facilities, including five deaths in January and two in February in Badr Hashemi jails. Prominent among the deceased are former Member of Parliament Adel Rizq and renowned lawyer Rahmani. The entire Egypt is under continuous Emergency Law, and the recently announced sham presidential elections were nothing more than a farce.
Experts closely monitoring Egypt’s situation, including the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood and its council members, are linking the timing of these sentences with the situation in Gaza and Palestine. The late President Mohamed Morsi famously stated in his presidential speech in response to Israeli aggression on Gaza: “We will not leave Gaza alone.” He also said, “If the Egyptian people can overthrow tyrannical regimes and their injustices in the Arab Spring, they can also end Israeli domination and oppression.”
He warned, “You will never achieve peace and security through oppression and aggression. The blood you shed will rain curses upon you, and in response to that blood, all the nations of the region will rise against you. The oppressor Israel should learn a lesson from history.”
It can be confidently said that this is the same courageous stance of the Brotherhood that is being further suppressed at this juncture!
