Dar al-Ifta says Brotherhood leaders’ practices have driven their youth to suicide

Ali Ragab

The Observatory for Monitoring Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Ideologies at Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta has revealed that a large number of young Brotherhood terrorist fugitives in Turkey have committed suicide because of the difficult economic conditions they are experiencing due to the lack of financial resources that Brotherhood leaders had promised to provide them from donations collected from the group’s centers and charities under fake names in different countries.

The Observatory explained in a report that the high rate of suicide among Brotherhood youth is not due to economic reasons in the first place, but rather psychological reasons as a result of the state of despair reached by the youth because of the shock in discovering the group’s leaders used them as human shields to make political gains. When they failed to do so, they traded young people for financial benefits, which the terrorist leaders put into their own bank accounts. They did not spend the money on caring for the young men who were deceived by their hostility towards their homeland and residing in Turkey, where the leaders told them they would find a good atmosphere in which to start a good life. But the youth have been confronted with racism from the Turkish leadership and people. Combined, these reasons contributed to the terrorist group’s youth to enter into a state of desperation that contributed to their loss of a desire to live.

The Observatory pointed out that there is a sense of alienation for young people who joined the Brotherhood in Turkey after uncovering the facts about the group’s false allegations. This has drove them to commit suicide when they could not make a living while the group’s leaders spend tens of thousands of dollars to commemorate the group’s founding and other historical events, ignoring to care for the youth who have sacrificed themselves and their futures out of belief in a deceptive illusion.

The Observatory went on to report that the incidents of suicide among Brotherhood youth confirm the statements made by fugitive Brotherhood member Amir Bassam last July that the group’s leaders spent large amounts of money on their families. There was one revelation that the son of Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Hussein bought a luxury car for $100,000 at a time when the group’s youth suffer from financial insecurity. This has resulted in clashes between the group’s leaders and a number of its youth in Turkey.

The Observatory added that there are threats from elements of the group to publish facts of corruption and embezzlement within the Brotherhood, which is conclusive evidence of many aspects of financial and administrative manipulation inside the organization. The group’s youth have already confirmed that they have many leaks and recordings of embezzlement and confessions from their leaders that the money in their possession is spent for personal purposes and not for the benefit of the group, including rumors of more than $130 million having been spent without any knowledge as to how.

According to the Observatory, the group has multiple sources of access to funds; however, there is a lot of cover-up and ambiguity about the spending of these funds, as previous events have revealed that there is financial manipulation. This comes at a time when the group’s leaders fleeing abroad are inciting the youth to take up arms and spread violence. However, these differences between the leaders and the youth reflect the magnitude of the suffering experienced by the group’s youth abroad, such that many of them want to rid themselves of this confused ideology, especially with their leaders’ increased disregard for their circumstances. The head of the group, Ibrahim Mounir, came out last August to say that the group did not force anyone to join it, in reference to the leaders’ approach of abandoning the youth.