Egypt intensifies crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood

This article originally appeared on The Media Line.

If carried out, the recent death sentence of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi could spark widespread disturbances in Egypt. The court is expected to confirm the sentences of more than 120 Muslim Brotherhood leaders including senior figures of the Muslim Brotherhood, after an opinion by a religious leader. According to Egyptian law, the executions can go ahead even without religious sanction, but some say the government will not carry out the executions fearful of public anger.

While Morsi is the most famous, estimates range from 16,000 up to 40,000 for the number of Muslim Brotherhood supporters who are being held in jail. Two senior Brotherhood members, both former members of the Egyptian parliament, died in jail in the past week. Supporters said they did not receive adequate medical care, while the government insisted the men died despite receiving treatment.

“There is a systematic crackdown on the Brotherhood and it is becoming more evident because of the execution verdicts and the deaths of the two parliament members,” Maha Azzam, of the Carnegie Middle East Center, told The Media Line. “The aim is to hit really hard at the opposition and weaken the Muslim Brotherhood.”

She said that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s crackdown has also been aimed at other opposition groups in Egypt including leftists, but the government clearly sees the Muslim Brotherhood as its main rival, and is determined to crush it.

A recent op-ed in the pro-government newspaper El Watan by Mahmoud Kardousi calls for all members of the Muslim Brotherhood to be executed.

“I cannot hid my happiness and gloating in the execution of each person who belongs to the gang of the Brotherhood even if they were a million or ten million,” he writes. “Egypt will not get hurt if you cut one of her fingers before the whole body is poisoned.”

Azzam said that the government is encouraging these violent sentiments against Muslim Brotherhood members, but warns it could backfire.

“This could be very dangerous,” she said. “There is a breakdown of the rule of law and the judiciary is seen as politicized. If all democratic channels are blocked, there will be a new outbreak of violence.”

The Arab Spring came to Egypt with large mostly peaceful demonstrations to unseat long-time autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak. After Mubarak, who was recently exonerated of corruption charges, stepped down in 2011, Egypt’s first democratic elections brought Mohamed Morsi to power in 2012. By the following year, millions were demonstrating in the streets against Morsi, and in the summer of July, 2013, the military took over Egypt again.

Since then, Sisi has cracked down not only on the Muslim Brotherhood but on journalists as well. Most outlets critical of the government have been closed, and even those journalists still working practice self-censorship.

“We’ve seen journalists arrested in their homes with no solid evidence,” Nadine Haddad, an Amnesty campaigner for Egypt told The Media Line. “There is a trend against any journalists who are critical of the state narrative.”

Egypt is a young country with more than half of its population of 85 million under the age of 25. They are getting around the censorship of journalism by taking to social media. Studies show that the use of Twitter has increased tenfold over the past few years.