Report warns against growing Brotherhood influence in Germany

Hani Daniel

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Internal Intelligence Committee in Germany, referred recently to an increase in the number of Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the last year.

It said 1,450 people joined the group in this year, compared with 1,350 in the previous year.

The committee’s annual report, which is made of 420 pages, devotes a large space to Islamic and “terrorist movements” in Germany.

It says the Muslim Brotherhood is the largest Islamic movement in the European country. The Brotherhood, it adds, has branches in 70 countries in various forms and follows the ideology of group founder Hassan al-Banna.

The committee also referred to the Brotherhood’s slogan which unites all its branches around the world, namely “God is our goal, the Prophet is our guide, the Qur’an is our constitution, jihad is our way and death for the sake of God is our noblest wish”.

The committee noted that this ideology is incompatible with democratic principles, such as the right to free elections, the right to equal treatment and freedom of expression and religion.

It noted that the presence of many Islamic and terrorist organizations in parts of Germany like the Palestinian Hamas movement and the Islamic group that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood is a source of concern.

The committee added that since the 1970s, the Muslim Brotherhood has assumed the renunciation of violence in order to achieve its goals.

Nevertheless, the same group advocates resistance to occupation forces, which brings up the issue of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood, the report says, saw its political heyday between 2011 and 2013 against the background of the Arab Spring revolutions, it did not seek to be part of a democratic system, but rather wanted to use democratic elections as a starting point to impose its idea of an Islamic political system.