Egypt: Brotherhood Receives Another Blow

A recent Egyptian court ruling that dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political wing of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, has dealt another crippling blow to the country's oldest Islamist movement.

The FJP and its allied parties have denounced the verdict as "flawed and defective", while the mainstream local media reacted with ease.

Meanwhile, experts said that Islamist parties are likely to face the same scenario of dissolving.

On 9 August, Egypt's High Administrative Court issued a ruling dissolving the FJP. In its whereases, the court said "the trial of the party's leader Muhammad al-Katatni made it clear that the party has breached its principles and targets."

The party was a source of threat to the Egyptian democratic regime and national security, the court said.

The FJP issued a statement saying that although the leaders of the "military coup" had managed to dissolve the FJP, they would not be able to take away the "legitimacy".

The statement added: "While the military coup and the anti-revolution judiciary dissolved the FJP, they will not be able to dissolve our values or besiege our ideas, and will not be able to take away our legitimacy that was granted to the party by the people in all the elections after the 25 January revolution."

The Brotherhood and its allies have been regarding the military's removal of President Muhammad Morsi from power in July last year as a "military coup".

The pro-Brotherhood National Alliance for Supporting Legitimacy (NASL) denounced the ruling as "flawed and defective", saying the court has deviated from constitutional rules.

"There is glaring evidence of politicizing the judicial system and of a total lack of real independence of the judiciary," NASL said in a statement.

"This decision comes within the scheme to monopolize the political arena and to drag the people into a cycle of violence," it added.

Meanwhile, the local media have reacted with ease to the court ruling, with private and state-owned newspapers and TV channels reporting the news with a welcoming tone.

Newspapers carried headlines reflecting a sense of ease and gloating, with emphasis on the fact that the ruling is final and cannot be appealed.

"The judiciary cuts the Brotherhood's arm; A final ruling to dissolve the FJP and confiscate its money," read a headline carried by private daily Al-Tahrir on 10 August.

The state-owned Al-Akhbar daily carried a front-page headline reading: "Final ruling: Dissolving Freedom and Justice Party."

The state-owned daily Al-Juhmhuryiah, meanwhile, accused the FJP party, in an editorial, of causing many "crimes".

"The administrative court passed a ruling that dissolves the Brotherhood's party, which was responsible for a series of crimes and mistakes that could have led the country to the verge of a civil war," said the editorial.

The ruling was also hailed by some TV anchors. "The ruling puts the last nail in the coffin of the FJP, so that this party is moved as a dead body to the history's graveyard, and to the dirtiest of history's dustbins," said TV presenter Youssef al-Husseini of private ON TV.

Some experts, meanwhile, said that a number of parties within the pro-Muslim Brotherhood alliance are afraid of facing the same scenario of dissolving, especially because some of them are going through the same circumstances experienced by the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm and their leaders are accused of inciting violence, something which will lead them to reconsider their support for the Brotherhood in the coming period.

Dissident Brotherhood leader Tharwat al-Kharabawi said that all parties allied with the Brotherhood will likely be dissolved whether they are Islamist parties or otherwise.

He noted that the ruling that dissolved the FJP was issued on the basis that the party carried out acts prohibited by the law, which makes the parties allied with the Brotherhood liable for dissolution.

For his part, Khalid al-Zaafarani, an expert in Islamic movements, said that the dissolution of the FJP applies to the rest of the Brotherhood's allied parties, because they are involved in violence with the Brotherhood.

This is not the first time the Brotherhood receives a blow from the authorities since the ouster of President Morsi in July 2013.

In December, the authorities designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. In September, a court banned the Muslim Brotherhood itself, but that ruling did not mention its political wing, leaving open the possibility it could be allowed to run in parliamentary elections, due later this year.

The recent ruling excludes the Brotherhood from official participation in elections or politics, potentially forcing the movement underground.

The court's ruling called for the FJP to be dissolved and its assets to be seized by the state. The decision is final and cannot be appealed, according to judicial sources.

The Muslim Brotherhood, once Egypt's oldest, best organized and most successful political movement, has seen hundreds of its members killed and thousands detained since then-army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi overthrew elected president and Brotherhood member Muhammad Morsi in July 2013 following mass protests against his one-year troubled rule.

Morsi and other Brotherhood officials were rounded up in the wake of his ouster and hundreds have been sentenced to death in mass court rulings that have drawn criticism from Western governments and human rights groups.

Al-Sisi, who went on to win a presidential election in May, vowed during his campaign that the Brotherhood would cease to exist under his rule.

The Brotherhood reiterates that it is a peaceful movement, but attacks by militants have risen since the army overthrew Morsi. Most of the violence has taken place in the Sinai Peninsula near the border with Israel and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. The army has responded with air and ground attacks.

The FJP was established in June 2011, in the aftermath of the uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years in power.