Mohammed Morsi Has Died

The Daily Caller is reporting today that former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has died following his collapse in an Egyptian courtroom.

The article reports:

Morsi was 67. He has been in custody since his ousting as president in 2013 during a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which he represented, reported BBC.

Morsi was being tried on espionage charges when he passed out and was taken to a hospital, reported TIME.

His presidential term was short-lived after he was elected in the country’s first free elections in 2012 after the expulsion of former President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi broke out of prison in 2011 during the uprisings against Mubarak and was sentenced to death in 2015 for the jail break after being removed from power. He was sentenced for conspiring with Hamas and Hezbollah militants to break out, but the death sentence was overturned in 2016.

…President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has led Egypt since 2014. El-Sisi has promoted peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims in his country, including by presiding over the opening of a cathedral, but Egypt’s human rights record is far from perfect. For example, an Egyptian TV journalist was sentenced to prison for a year in January and fined 3,000 Egyptian pounds after interviewing a gay man on his show in August 2018, Egypt state-run media reported.

President el-Sisi was essentially put in place by the military to end President Morsi’s reign of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is not actually a democracy, but the military seems to run it with a fairly even hand–allowing most people to quietly practice their faith.

Outlawed Again

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the government of Egypt has dissolved the political party of the banned Muslim Brotherhood and ordered its assets liquidated. The name of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party was the Freedom and Justice Party. So much for truth in advertising.

The article reports:

The decision against the Freedom and Justice Party comes after a recommendation by the court’s advisory panel that noted the party’s leaders had already been accused, and in some cases convicted, of murder and inciting violence.

The recommendation added that the police investigation stated the party headquarters and offices were used to store weapons.

The Middle East news agency said the decision is final.

The court decision is part of a wider crackdown against the group and its members that landed thousands in jail, including a many sentenced to death on charges of inciting violence.

The government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group late last year, accusing it of orchestrating a wave of violence to destabilize the country after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member, in the wake of mass protests against him.

This is not the first encounter between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian government (and unfortunately it may not be the last).

The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al Banna. In 1923 when the Turkish empire was dissolved and the modern state of Turkey established, Mustapha Kemal, known as Ataturk, wanted to abolish the caliphate and set up secular rule. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in reaction to the secularization of Turkey.

Some of the bylaws of the Muslim Brotherhood:

…the need to work on establishing the Islamic State

…the sincere support for a global cooperation in accordance with the provisions of Islamic Sharia

The assassination of Anwar Sadat was carried out by a nationalistic group associated with the Muslim Brotherhood because Sadat had made a peace treaty with Israel.

The Muslim Brotherhood is active in America with a number of front groups. The Muslim Brotherhood plan for North America can be found in the exhibits in the Holy Land Foundation Trial that took place in Texas in 2007. There is also a list of unindicted co-conspirators that includes many groups now accepted as Muslim spokespeople by our government.

The danger posed by the Muslim Brotherhood is worldwide–America is not exempt from that danger. The difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda is method–not goal. The Muslim Brotherhood did not support the attack on September 11, 2001, because they felt it was too early to attempt to destroy America with violence–they felt they needed more time to destroy America politically. That is an ongoing process.