Ted Cruz (R., Texas) for the Senate, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.) are handling a bill requiring the Secretary of State to submit a report to Congress on the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.
One of the argument is that “Multiple countries have declared the Society of the Muslim Brothers (commonly known as the ‘‘Muslim Brotherhood’’) a terrorist organization or proscribed the group from operating in their coun- tries.”
Follows, in the bill, the multiple act of violence ordered by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Since August 2013, attacks included 70 churches and more than 1,000 homes and businesses of Coptic Christian families torched in the ensuing violence.
On January 27, 2015, the Muslim Broth erhood published on their official Ikhwanonline.com website an announcement that the organization was entering a ‘‘new phase’’ and calling its followers to prepare for a ‘‘long, uncompromising jihad’’ against the Egyptian government.
On May 27, 2015, a group of 159 Muslim Brotherhood-associated scholars from 35 nations announced the publication of a document endorsing violence in Egypt in response to a ‘‘war against Islam’s principles”.
A senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader, Ashraf Abdel Ghaffar, gave a July 3, 2015 interview in which he defended the sabotage of power stations and high voltage pylons targeting Egyptian citizens by the Muslim Brotherhood as punishment for support of the Egyptian government.
On these regards, for the Congressmen the Muslim Brotherhood meets the criteria for designation as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189)
This organization was founded in 1981 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Several of its administrators, including Ahmed Elkadi and Jamal Badawi, were also former official directors of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the following video Jamal Badawi declared that he is an active militant for the re-establishment of a caliphate without borders:
The Islamic Society of North America is an umbrella organization which claims to cover 70% of American mosques. During the Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial in 2007, the State Justice Dept. designated ISNA, CAIR and NAIT as “an entity which is or has been a member of the American Muslim Brotherhood.” ISNA lodged a complaint to be removed from the State Department’s list. Judge Solis ruled that the government should not have drawn up a list of associations having links with the Muslim Brotherhood, but that “the government had produced ample proof which permitted to link CAIR, ISNA, NAIT with the Islamic Association for Palestine and with Hamas.”
In 2014 Azhar Azeez was appointed president of ISNA. For many years he worked for multinational companies such as General Electric, American General Life and Capital One. He was also national director of Islamic Relief USA.
On 8 May 2015, in the presence of Angela Davis, Amal Bentounsi announced that this march would take place under the banner of the Parti des Indigènes de la République (Party of the Indigenous of the Republic, P.I.R.). The announcement was made at the event “les 10 ans du PIR” (the ten years of the PIR). Since December 2013 Amal Bentounsi has contributed to various publications of the PIR.
THE LEADERS OF THE MARCH
Amal Bentounsi : “the mastermind of the march “
Amal Bentounsi was the figurehead who led the march. On the Streetpress* website she was even referred to as the “activist behind the March for dignity”. Amal Bentouni is the sister of Amine Bentounsi who was killed by a police officer. Few in the media remember that she had accused the police of deliberately murdering him as they had harboured a grudge against him for 10 years. According to her he was persecuted for having reported to the Meaux police station that he had received cash payments from a director of the local housing office to set fire to cars in the neighbourhood, in order to justify Jean-François Copé’s security policy… Amal Bentounsi declared to the Parisien newspaper: “The police took it really badly”. A conspiracy theory she defended for a long time, in particular in an interview on RMC with Jean-Jacques Bourdin. Strangely enough, in Amal Bentounsi’s recent interviews this conspiracy theory is no longer mentioned.
In 2009, before her brother was killed, Amal Bentounsi had begun writing a novel called “Ce petit frère qu’on assassine” (The little brother they are killing). It was written three years before the death of her brother, who had been convicted several times for hold-ups. Amal Bentounsi then produced a video clip: SOS, police are killing, in which she says: “You want to commit violence and crimes with impunity, without ever being questioned by the authorities. You insult, you are violent, you don’t respect the code of ethics. Arrogance and contempt, these are the virtues you uphold. Ready to kill without the justification of self defence. For pocket money and extra cash you pin accusations of assaulting a police officer. The police force recruits and the judiciary protects and acquits you. No need to worry even if you are guilty, they’ll arrange for you not to be. Our unions are powerful. So hurry up, the police force is the best career going for being above the law.”
Taken to court for this video clip, the prosecutor requested and obtained her acquittal.
Hanane Karimi
Hanane Karimi appeared at the very first press conference on 7 July 2015. She is a PhD student and spokesperson for the “Les Femmes dans la Mosquée” (Women in the Mosque) collective. In 2014 the magazine Les Inrocks published a very flattering portrait of her, presenting her as a feminist fighting against the archaism of… the Grand Mosque of Paris. In fact Hanane Karimi writes texts for the Centre
de recherche sur la législation islamique et l’éthique (Research Centre on Islamic Legislation and Ethics), which is a member of the Islamic Studies Faculty of Qatar, founded by… Tariq Ramadan and Youssef Al Qaradawi (wanted by Interpol).
Deeply affected by the terrorist attacks in January she suggested to her “non Muslim friends… that they congregate around the mosques to prevent attacks or outbreaks of violence and thumb their noses at the racists”. On 15 January she wrote on the Islamist website Saphirnews: “So when Charlie decides to publish 1, 3, then 5 million copies of an edition whose cover is a drawing of the Prophet of Islam, I do wonder about it. The man in the drawing is called Mahomet. I don’t know him. With his turban and djellaba he’s the classic example of the Muslim Arab, all the stigmas are there in this cover. He is the over-simplified and contextualized French portrayal of a man they claim to be one of us. He is not one of us. He is not Muhammad. He is just a distorted image, a stylized projection of an ensemble of never-ending cliché. Charlie, who doesn’t like symbols, nonetheless has a symbol: the symbol of Islam which is Mahomet, “he who is not blessed”. He is the symbol of those who are different: the Arab and the Muslim caricatured to the extreme.” An opinion which earned her an invitation to Berkeley to give a talk on “Islamophobia” following the terrorist attacks at Charlie Hebdo.
Hanan Karimi is a mouthpiece for the Parti des Indigènes de la République (Party of the Indigenous of the Republic, P.I.R). On 8 May she tweeted :
On 6 March 2015, Hanane Karimi attended the meeting “Against Islamophobia and the climate of security war”.
On 1st November she implied that Tariq Ramadan was not involved in the march. She had probably forgotten that Tariq Ramadan was one of the first to call for the march… And that his highly motivated students, including her, were pointed out as being behind the march.
PROMINENT SIGNATORIES
Houria Bouteldja: PIR spokesperson
Mamans toutes égales (all mothers are equal): A collective set up to defend the right of mothers wearing the veil to accompany their children on school outings.
Tariq Ramadan : no presentation needed.
Not only from the outset did he incite people to march, but he did so on several occasions.
The rapper Medine
Medine, producer of a video clip calling for “secularists to be crucified”, provided his truck for the speech and concert at the end of the day.
Medine explained that he had co-founded the association Havre du Savoir (Haven of Knowledge), a website which relays the French publications of the Muslim Brotherhood. They teach us that we must be beware of the Shiites, Zaydis, Alawites and Yazidis and “understand why they do not follow the path of the Prophet”.
It was announced at the event that Medine had made a contribution for the demonstration.
Other signatories:
Ismahane Chouder, Participation et Spiritualité Musulmanes (Muslim Participation and Spirituality).
The Muslims of France Collective (close to Tariq Ramadan)
Les indivisibles
15 March and Freedom (against the law on the veil in schools)
AN ULTRA-PUBLICIZED DEMONSTRATION
The demonstration was announced and chronicled in an impressive number of media:
France 3
Arte
Itélé
BFM TV
Le Monde
Libération
Le Parisien
La dépêche
20 Minutes
La Croix
L’Obs
Le Figaro
Buzzfeed
Oumma
Safirnews
Mediapart
Hardly any of them, however, investigated the signatories, the organizers or even the text of the appeal, they were simply content to publish the elements they had been fed. Only a few groups and individuals had the courage to highlight the ambiguities of the approach, but they were immediately hunted down by the usual internet trolls. Ici, ici et ici. The media hype predicted a tsunami which promised to make the first anti-racist demonstrations a thing of the past. The first demonstrations, however, attracted 100.000 participants, whereas according to the organizers the march on 31 October 2015 drew 10.000.
THE DAY OF THE MARCH
Many people attended the anti-racism demonstration in good faith, without necessarily adhering to the opinions of the organizers.
Slogans heard during the march
“One, two, three Intifadas”
“From Gaza to Jenin, free Palestine”
“We don’t want the ‘je suis Charlie’ (I’m Charlie)! We don’t want the femens! We don’t want Islamophobia!”
An activist wearing a portrait of Morsi and the Rabia sign marched In front of the banner of the Parti des indigènes de la République.
Again, a militant wearing the Rabia sign in solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood was in the group of the recently convicted BDS.
The absence of the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) was much remarked. The historic anarchists do not want/no longer want to march with the PIR. Throughout the demonstration there were stickers criticizing the racialist options of the march.
Houria Bouteldja led the procession, even though everyone desperately tried to play down her presence.
Karima Souid, Tunisian politician (ex Etakatol) was at the demonstration. On 21 July 2015 Karima Souid had threatened the journalist Mohamed Sifaoui.
There were also posters calling for support for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
And a moment of nostalgia for the dictator Sekou Touré who died in 1984 after
26 years in power.
On the platform Saïd Bouamama declared “we are proud that we are not Charlie”.
One of the demonstrators was upset that a “white guy” had the nerve to march alongside her.
The same demonstrator applauded at the slogan refusing “integration through ham”, a concept developed by the preacher Hassan Iquioussen.
On the float leading the march the Communist Mayor of la Courneuve was accused of racism for having dismantled a Roma camp.
At the end of the march barely a hundred demonstrators stayed to listen to the leaders of the movement
In short, a demonstration programmed specially to thrill with delight the far right in France.
Speaking at a Gaza rally, former Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad said that Allah had created Man “only to wage Jihad, only to move forward, only to plunge the knives in the chests and bellies of the enemies.” His address aired on the Hamas Al-Aqsa TV channel on October 19, 2015.
In an address broadcast on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV on October 19, former Gaza interior minister Fathi Hammad praised Palestinian “martyrs” who had committed themselves to the killing of Jews, who he called “the slayers of the prophets, the bloodsuckers, the killers of the martyrs.” …
The Hamas official praised the role of social media in promoting attacks on Israelis. “We salute the Facebook of Jihad, the Twitter of Jihad, the Whatsapp of Jihad. We salute anything wih Jihad in it.”
Allah, he said, had pledged to persecute the Jews and had created man “only to wage jihad, only to move forward, only to plunge their knives in the chests and bellies of the enemies.
On 17 October 2015, a demonstration was organized in Paris, at the Place de la Republique, under the theme: “The intifada goes on, Support the Palestinian resistance.”
The demonstration was organized by Generation Palestine Paris, the Al Quds Collective and the Palestinian Youth Movement. Other associations were also invited such as: the Indigènes de la République Party or Sheikh Yassine Collective.
While some protesters came to express their sympathy and solidarity for Palestine, others used a much more offensive speech.
All over the place, were posters, banners and other stickers calling to “Boycott Israel”, together with illustrations presenting Israel as a “Nazi country”. Also present were portraits of ousted Egyptian President (and Muslim Brotherhood representative) , Mohamed Morsi, and many flags with the Rabia symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Different speakers called to “boycott Israel” and “pursue resistance in any way”, and sometimes more directly incited “to continue knife attacks” (as already stated in the press event on Facebook). Israel was described as “a Zionist and Nazi country”. The possibility of two states living side-by-side in peace was rejected by a speaker who claimed a complete victory for the Palestinians.
Several protesters were waiving the Muslim Brotherhood symbol known as the Rabia (also spelled Rabaa). This symbol appeared after the violent crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood at Rabia Al-Adawiyya on 14 August 2013.
The Sheikh Yassine Collective (YCC) was also keen on voicing its opinion, and made different means available for that purpose, including a truck, speakers, and giant portraits of Sheikh Yassin, the founder of Hamas. Their leader, Abdelkrim Sefrioui was present and did not hesitate to make a live call and talk to a “Palestinian resistant”, whom he described as a prominent Hamas member. The latter gave instructions to the demonstrators to continue to demonstrate for Palestine, and oppose the French leadership which is “under Zionist control”, as much as is “Europe” or the “United Nations”. The Sheikh Yassin Collective did not hesitate to minimize the Holocaust, referred to the Auschwitz extermination camp in ironice terms, and designated the “Zionists” as the actual Nazis.
This was followed by a street prayer, Shahada recitation by the Cheikh Yassine Collective, some “Allah u Akbar”, and a warmly applauded call on demonstrators to become “mujahideen”. Sefrioui then sang “Zionist Fascists, Hamas resistance, Jihad resistance” with the crowd, and called to “arm the Hamas.”
Khaled al-Attiyah Qatar’s foreign minister just declared that there is no “animosity” between Qatar and Egypt.
In an interview published in Al Hayat on the 30 of september Khaled al-Attiyah called the Muslim Brotherhood an “internal issue”, and said Qatar does not interfere in countries’ internal affairs.
The Muslim Brotherhood are considered a terrorist group in Egypt and the Emirates.
Through her articles and actions Mona Eltahawy has fought for the autonomy, security, and dignity of Muslim women, drawing vocal supporters and detractors. Now, in her first book, Headscarves and Hymens, Eltahawy has prepared a definitive condemnation of the repressive forces-political, cultural, and religious-that reduce millions of women to second-class citizens. Drawing on her years as a campaigner for and commentator on women’s issues in the Middle East, she explains that since the Arab Spring began in 2010, women in the Arab world have had two revolutions to undertake: one fought alongside men against oppressive regimes, and another fought against an entire political and economic system that represses women in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and other nations. Eltahawy has traveled across the Middle East and North Africa, meeting with women and listening to their stories. Her book is a plea for outrage and action, confronting a “toxic mix of culture and religion that few seem willing or able to disentangle lest they blaspheme or offend.” A manifesto motivated by hope and fury in equal measure, Headscarves and Hymens is as illuminating as it is incendiary.
In her book Mona Eltahawy, recalls a meeting with a Muslim Brotherhood leader. He was trying to demonstrate that Muslim Brotherhood group believed in pluralism and inclusion.
“And as proof, you are here meeting me and you are naked,” he said. “I am not naked,” Mona Eltahawy protested . “Your hair is naked, your arms are naked, according to God’s law you are naked.”
Headscarves and Hymens – Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution; Mona Eltahawy, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £16.99.
Four Ennahda deputies were invited by the French Foreign Affairs Ministry to take part in the programme “Personalities of the Future”: Hayet Omri, Sayida Ounissi, Naoufel Jammali, Imen Ben Mhamed. In addition, 10 non Ennahda deputies and elected representatives were also present.
The programme was established by the French Foreign Affairs Ministry with a view to identifying foreign contacts who could become potential partners. It was therefore a special event. For some Quai d’Orsay officials the Muslim Brotherhood remains a key partner even though there was a majority of non fundamentalist deputies.
For the Ennahda deputies this visit was an opportunity to meet with politicians who had not hesitated to support their party. Sayida Ounissi, who attended the US-Islamic World Forum from 1-3 June 2015 in Doha, Qatar, wrote on her Facebook page that both Stéphane Romatet and Claude Bartolone “support” (our) “transition”. To their credit both Razzy Hammadi and Claude Bartolone have also criticized the fundamentalists.
However, in July 2014, on one of Tunisia’s major websites, Sayida Ounissi vehemently insulted “The lying gangsters of Kapitalis (they have to be to write in this rag) publish the press release of the mentally deranged and victims of hallucinations who link UniT, Escot, Connect and the ATUGE to Ennahdha in their pro-election actions“. On the status of women, she speaks of “bourguibist mythology” and “benalist insrumentalisation”.
The delegation then met with Jean-Paul Delevoye, President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, Annick Girardin, Secretary of State for Development and Francophonie and with Jack Lang at the Institut du Monde Arabe. Following the meeting the Ennahda deputy for France stated: “I expressed to him my idea of organizing an exhibition at the IMA on the little known works of the Bardo Museum. This would send a strong signal across the world and promote the cultural influence of a region which has been hit by violence and terrorism. He welcomed this proposition and the museum and his team are in the process of achieving the project”.
Manuel Valls also met with the delegation, but no photo was published. The Prime Minister expressed his commitment to fight against Islamic fundamentalism and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Tunisian democrats were encouraged by the fact that Manuel Valls refused to shake hands with President Moncef Marzouki. According to Sayida Ounissi “His diplomatic adviser Stéphane Romatet publicly acknowledged Ennahdha’s role in the democratic process.”
Middle East Monitor is a website with aims to facilitate a better understanding and appreciation of the Palestine issue. The website develops a strongly pro-Brotherhood and pro-Hamas view of the region. Its Facebook fan page is followed by 494 993 persons.
Middle East Monitor informations were quoted by many mainstream media such as :
– The Telegraph
– The New York Times
– The Independent
– The Guardian
– The Financial Times
– The Times
Unfortunately these prestigious media forgot to inform their readers of the Middle East Monitor staff political background linked to Muslim Brotherhood.
• The director of Middle East Monitor, Daud Abdullah, is a former Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain where he consistently backed the boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day. He is also member of Muslim Brotherhood-linked British Muslim Initiative, set up and run by the Brotherhood activist Anas al-Tikriti and two senior figures in Hamas. Daud Abdullah is Khateeb of An Noor Mosque, home for radicals. In 2009, The Guardianrevealed that Daud Abdullah advocates attack on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.
• MEMO’s senior editor, Ibrahim Hewitt a convert who believes that adulterers should be stoned to death. He is chairman of Interpal, the Hamas-linked charity.
• Walaa Ramadan is researcher for MEMO. Great fan of Morsi, she uses the Rabaa sign and endorse the anti-Semite Erdogan quote : “There are only two paths in Egypt: Those who follow the Pharoah, and those who follow Moses.”
• Hanan Chehata is Middle East Monitor press officer. She also news editor at Middle East Eye linked to Interpal a British charity banned by the US government as “part of the funding network of Hamas”.
• Tariq Ramadan serves as Honorary Advisers to the Middle East Monitor.
Middle East Monitor is not only giving the Muslim Brotherhood Point of vue. MEMO has organised several meetings featuring Hamas and extremist leaders. On may 2013, MEMO invited Jafar Hadi Hassan for his book ‘Qadaya wa Shaksyat Yahudiya (Jewish Issues and Personalities). The website is also home to conspiracy theories about Jews and Israël, explaining that “Israeli donors controls Westminster” or that “Arabs governments fund Israeli assaults on Gaza”.
In august 2015 Middle East Monitor hosted a big meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, futur leader of Labour. Corbyn finally cancelled it after the media picked up on Stand for Peace report*.
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