An Egyptian court on Monday ordered the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood and the confiscation of its assets, opening the door for authorities to dramatically accelerate a crackdown on the extensive network of schools, hospitals, charities and other social institutions that was the foundation of the group’s political power.
Security forces have been moving against the Brotherhood’s social networks — raiding schools and hospitals run by the group — since the military’s July 3 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
The sweep points to the ambitions of Egypt’s new leaders to go beyond the arrests of top Brotherhood figures to strike a long-term, even mortal, blow to the group by hitting the pillars of its grassroots organization. Doing so could cripple the group’s political prospects far into the future.
“The plan is to drain the sources of funding, break the joints of the group, and dismantle the podiums from which they deliver their message,” said one senior security official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security agencies’ intentions.
Blurring its political and religious nature, the Brotherhood vaulted to election dominance in large part because of its multiple business interests that provide funding, as well as schools, mosques and powerful social institutions that offer cheap medical care and services to millions of impoverished Egyptians. As a result, after the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, the Brotherhood swept parliament elections and lifted Morsi into office as the country’s first freely elected leader.
“The hospitals and schools are among the most powerful tools to garner support, which would be translated into votes,” said Ahmed Ban, a researcher and former Brotherhood member.
In election seasons, Brotherhood hospitals, joined by candidates, would send medical convoys offering free care to villages where state services are absent. The past two years, the Brotherhood’s the Freedom and Justice Party held markets selling reduced-price food and clothes.
Outlawed for most of its 85-year existence — with successive regimes alternating between repression and tolerance — the Brotherhood built its networks largely underground. That made it difficult for authorities to track, since many institutions were registered under individuals’ names.
After Mubarak’s ouster, the group emerged, opening a formal headquarters and forming a political party. Ironically, that made parts of its structure more visible. The senior security official said intelligence and the National Security agency have been working through banks, oversight agencies and state records to compile a database of Brotherhood members and assets. An earlier court ruling froze the assets of 24 senior figures, including deputy head Khairat el-Shater, a wealthy businessman seen as the group’s top financier and strongman.
Monday’s court ruling, if upheld over any appeals, gives authorities a legal basis to move against those assets.
The sweeping verdict banned the group as well as “any institution branching out of it or … receiving financial support from it,” which legal experts said could also force the disbanding of the Freedom and Justice Party. It also ordered the group’s assets and property confiscated.
The court’s explanation gave few specific legal grounds, beyond saying the group used Islam “as a cover” while it “violated citizen’s rights.” It gave a broad political denunciation, saying that during Morsi’s year in office, “Egyptians found only repression and arrogance.”
The ruling means any member risks arrest, a return to Mubarak’s days when the typical charge for arresting Brothers was “belonging to a banned group.”
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