European policies toward Brotherhood

Yasmin Hamdi Abu Aisha

The Muslim Brotherhood’s history is of full of instances where the Islamist group sought protection from Western countries.

European states were an important refuge for Brotherhood leaders, especially in the 1950s and the 1960s, when the group clashed with late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The Brotherhood also turned European capitals into centers where they made schemes against Arab capitals. They also used the same capitals as lynchpin for incitement campaigns against Arab governments. They tarnished the image of these governments and incited Western governments against them.

Western governments, for their part, use the Brotherhood to further their own agendas of creating rifts within Middle Eastern states and also gaining a foothold in predominantly Muslim countries.

These governments use the Brotherhood as a pressure card against Arab governments and peoples.

The administration of former US president Barack Obama did this against the Egyptian government when the Brotherhood lost public support in Egypt.

December 25, 2013 was a decisive day for the Brotherhood in Egypt. On that day, the Brotherhood was designated as a “terrorist” organization in the Arab state. Nevertheless, some states, including the United Kingdom, refused to give the group the same label. This opens the door for questions about the type of links between Muslim Brotherhood members and leaders in Europe, on one hand, and the mother organization in Egypt, on the other.

Heading to Europe

The flight of the members and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the members of the Baath Party in Syria to Europe was connected with conditions around these people at the time. Youssef Nada from Egypt and Youssef al-Attar from Syria were among the most famous Brotherhood and Baath leaders escaping to Europe from their countries.

Once in Europe, Brotherhood leaders formed a huge network of mosques, charities and Islamic organizations. These entities aimed first and foremost to spread the ideology of the Brotherhood in Europe. They also worked to offer support to Brotherhood members escaping to Europe, turning the continent into a fertile ground for terrorists.

The Brotherhood has a knack for maneuvering, using thoughts and religious edicts. They used to call Europe a “House of war”. However, they changed their mind on this later in an attempt to win support from European governments and gain legitimacy for their presence in European countries.

Map

The Brotherhood worked actively to turn European countries into launch pads for their attacks on Arab countries. This was why they worked hard to expand their presence in European states, such as France, the UK and Germany. These countries are important magnets for Muslims from Arab and Islamic countries. The Brotherhood also worked to gain presence in the different social associations and organizations present in Europe.

First, vertical expansion

The Brotherhood’s expansion in main European states aimed to make the group gain strategic importance in these states. Here are the states where the Brotherhood has the most presence:

France

The Federation of Islamic Organizations, which was founded by Brotherhood members from Tunisia and Morocco, has 250 mosques and Islamic societies under its umbrella. The federation also founded ten educational institutions with the aim of creating a Brotherhood elite in Europe. The group also controls a number of studies and research centers.

Germany

Muslim Brotherhood presence in Germany started in 1963 at the Munich Mosque. The Brotherhood then founded the Central Council for Muslims in Germany, the Islamic Institution in Germany and the Milli Gorus Islamic Community. The group also founded Zentralrat, a union of Milli Gorus and the Islamic Institution in Germany. The new entity has close links with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The UK

The Islamic Group in Pakistan gained presence in the UK before any Islamist organization. It did this since the 1950s. In 1997, Arab members of the Muslim Brotherhood founded the British Islamic Society. The society was headed by Kamal al-Helbawi who worked as the spokesman of Muslims in the UK. The society worked to incite opposition against Arab and Islamic regimes. The Brotherhood in effect controls 13 organizations and societies in British capital London alone. These organizations received funds from outside the UK with the aim of investing them in the European country. These projects aimed to open the door for the presence of the necessary funding for Brotherhood activities.

Second, horizontal expansion

The Brotherhood laid the nucleus of its horizontal expansion in the European continent in 1989. It did this by founding the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. The federation acts as a front for all Brotherhood societies and entities in Europe. It is also a tool of diplomatic representation for the Islamist group. The federation adopts a discourse that focuses on democracy and human rights.

The federation also created a number of subsidiary organizations that act as affiliate agencies. These organizations work to raise funds for Brotherhood entities, including ones that train mosque preachers. In 1996, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe established the European Youth Forum. It also established students’ organizations, benefiting from funding arriving from a number of Arab Gulf states.

European policies

A reference is made here to the policies of some model states. Put together, these policies can help us form a theory about European policies toward the Muslim Brotherhood.

1 – France

France is the country most targeted by terrorist groups in Europe. It was the scene of a series of terrorist operations in the past few years.

These attacks precipitated a series of measures. In July 2015, the French parliament debated a number of bills on increasing military spending and financial support to the judicial system. These measures aimed to boost the national counterterrorism strategy.

In November 2015, the French government imposed a nationwide state of emergency. A number of moderate Islamic centers issued, meanwhile, the Imam Charter on March 28, 2017, with the aim of correcting some misconceptions about the Islamic religion, ones propagated by the terrorists.

Nonetheless, the aforementioned measures came short of putting the lid on extremist and Brotherhood ideas in France. After all, this European state does not have a legal mechanism that can help it counter the expansion of Islamist groups in it, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.

2 – The UK

The UK had been the main destination for a large number of Salafist and jihadist figures for a long time in the past. Nonetheless, it realized the dangers inherent in the presence of these people in it. This was why it started to find ways to distance itself from these people.

The UK government started reconsidering its approach to the Muslim Brotherhood after the release of a report on the activities of the group in December 2015. Membership in the group, the report said, is a step on the road to extremism.

Nevertheless, the UK government refused to label the Brotherhood as a “terrorist” organization.

There are several hard line Islamic parties in the UK. These parties use legal conditions in this European state to increase their presence in European societies.

This shows that the new British counterterrorism strategy needs legal backing so that it can keep the lid on the danger posed by the presence of terrorist groups in it.

The UK’s disengagement from the Brotherhood is apparently a tactical move aimed at making the British government capable of using this group to serve its interests whenever it wants.