UK
Investigation Prompts Visa Ban for Muslim Brotherhood Members
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
December 17, 2015
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 Muslim Brotherhood
officials who have made extreme statements will be barred from receiving
visas to enter the United Kingdom, Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday.
The statement accompanied the public release of findings in a
surprisingly candid government study of the Egyptian-based Islamist group,
which briefly rose to power in 2012. That reign ended when the army, in the wake of massive public
demonstrations, removed President Mohamed Morsi.
Many Brotherhood goals and activities "run counter to British
values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the
mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs," Cameron
said. "The Muslim Brotherhood is not the only movement that promotes
values which appear intolerant of equality and freedom of faith and belief.
Nor is it the only movement or group dedicated in theory to revolutionising
societies and changing existing ways of life. But I have made clear this
government's determination to reject intolerance, and to counter not just
violent Islamist extremism, but also to tackle those who create the conditions
for it to flourish."
Cameron's direct assessment is the latest example among many showing the
stark contrast between him and the Obama administration, which met
repeatedly with Muslim Brotherhood officials during and after the Arab
Spring. In at least one case, the government helped a Brotherhood
delegation skip routine screening by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection upon landing in America.
Sir John Jenkins, Britain's former ambassador in Saudi Arabia who was
one of the two lead investigators, reported that the Brotherhood's year in
power in Egypt "did not do enough to demonstrate political moderation
or a commitment to democratic values, had failed to convince Egyptians of
their competence or good intentions, and had subsequently struggled to draw
lessons for what its failure in Egypt meant for its future."
He saw little evidence that the experience led to any meaningful change
in Brotherhood thinking.
The Obama administration saw things differently, with the State
Department in 2011 accepting an official's claim that the Brotherhood
"was not the extremist organization the West feared." When Obama
traveled to Cairo in 2009 to lay out his foreign policy goals, Muslim
Brotherhood officials were given front-row seats.
The White House praised Morsi early in his tenure. UK officials
interacted with the Brotherhood, too, but the report concludes
"official engagement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood produced no
discernible change in their thinking."
In its conclusion, the report to the House of Commons said that "aspects of Muslim Brotherhood ideology
and tactics, in this country and overseas, are contrary to our values and
have been contrary to our national interests and our national
security."
The IPT's documentary, "Jihad in America: The Grand Deception," traced the
history of the Brotherhood's ideology and goals.
In the U.S., the National Security Council is reviewing the report, a
spokesperson told the Investigative Project on Terrorism in an email. The
spokesperson emphasized that the UK isn't outlawing the Brotherhood, and
indicated it already disagreed with Cameron's pronouncement. The
"political repression of non-violent Islamist groups has historically
contributed to the radicalization of the minority of their members who
would consider violence. The de-legitimization of non-violent political
groups does not promote stability, and instead advances the very outcomes
that such measures are intended to prevent," the NSC email said.
But the UK report emphasized the Brotherhood's support for Hamas, calling
it "an important priority for the MB in Egypt and the MB international
network" during the past decade. And it found that Brotherhood members "are prepared to
countenance violence – including, from time to time, terrorism - where
gradualism is ineffective."
Brotherhood officials rejected the report's findings before they even read
it. In an English language statement, the group called the UK report "deeply flawed" and
promised a court challenge. The report "unfairly condemns millions of
Muslims and non-Muslims across the world, many of whom are British
citizens," said Amr Darrag, who serves on the executive board of the
Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party. Darrag also called the Brotherhood
"the Middle East's largest democratic organisation."
 A Brotherhood Twitter post went further, saying the report somehow
will "feed into the narrative by violent extremists..."
The Brotherhood remains secretive in the UK, "and use London as a
base for activism elsewhere."
British writer Douglas Murray praised the report as "a small triumph," but
highlighted its discussion about Brotherhood-tied charities and mosques
operating in the country. Barring MB officials from entering the UK is
fine, but does nothing about Brotherhood members already present who
"are now known to be working for an entity with some members who have
been officially labelled as possibly 'extremist' by the UK government."
The Brotherhood set up a series of organizations, which hid their
Brotherhood ties, during the 1990s, the report said. It named the Islamic
Society of Britain, Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Council of
Britain as groups shaped by the Brotherhood.
The report's authors found UK residents with Brotherhood connections who
previously "held out the prospect and ambition of an Islamic state in
this country as elsewhere."
For years, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has revealed how
the Obama administration has embraced the same spectrum of Muslim
Brotherhood groups in the United States as those described in the UK
report. In fact, the establishment of a covert structure of front groups
for the parent Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. was the exact same modus
operandi utilized in the UK by the Muslim Brotherhood-created groups who
wanted to hide under the radar screen using false monikers. And like the UK
Muslim Brotherhood groups that supported overseas terrorist groups like
Hamas and spouted the incendiary allegation that there was a war against
Islam, so, too, have American Islamist groups that have descended from the
Muslim Brotherhood engaged in the same deception.
The British report was brutally honest in acknowledging that it had been
deceived by a sophisticated campaign of manipulation by Muslim Brotherhood
front groups. And it admitted the national security dangers created by the
policies of befriending the totalitarian pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood
group and the myriad front groups in Britain it spawned. Yet, the Obama
administration continues to embrace and legitimized Muslim Brotherhood
front groups that similarly support terrorist organizations overseas and
also publicly espouse the false allegation that the U.S. is engaged in a
war against Islam. In fact, the Obama administration has invited members of
Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups to serve on advisory councils at
the Department of Homeland Security, to advise the Attorney General, to
serve as emissaries of the State Department under Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and to meet routinely with the president and his aides in
the Oval Office.
Just Monday, the White House hosted a representative of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group whose creation was blessed by the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Jihad in America: The Grand Deception" showed the depth of
Brotherhood-connected groups in the United States.
Cameron has spoken directly about the need to openly address Islamist
extremism before. "Our new approach is about isolating the extremists
from everyone else, so that all our Muslim communities can be free from the
poison of Islamist extremism," he said in a July speech. "Now for my part, I am going
to set up a new community engagement forum so I can hear directly from
those out there who are challenging extremism."
When the two leaders appeared together at the Unite Nations in
September, Cameron told Obama "we have to be frank that the biggest
problem we have today is the Islamist extremist violence that has given
birth to ISIL, to al-Shabab, to al-Nusra, al Qaeda and so many other
groups."
Now the UK has provided the public with details of a genuine
fact-finding mission about a global Islamist movement which seeks to
subvert the policies of Western governments. It is time for the United
States to find the same courage.
Related Topics: Steven
Emerson, Muslim
Brotherhood, United
Kingdom, David
Cameron, Obama
administration, Mohamed
Morsi, Freedom
and Justice Party, Sir
John Jenkins, House
of Commons, National
Security Council, Amr
Darrag, Douglas
Murray, CAIR,
Islamic
Society of Britain
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