As the British government begins a rigorous study of the Muslim Brotherhood, focusing on its aims, activities and attitudes to extremism, confusion surrounds reports that the group plans to relocate its international headquarters from London.
Austria’s second city, Graz, would be the new location, with offices also planned in as many as three other as yet unidentified European cities, according to information published online and monitored by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch (GMBDW).
The group has been under intense pressure since the Egyptian military removed Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader, as president in July last year.
In December, the Brotherhood was blamed for an attack on a police station and was declared a terrorist group by Egypt, the country where it was founded and and where it set up its headquarters after Hosni Mubarak was removed from power in 2011.
The GMBDW, run by a United States intelligence analyst, Steven Merley, cited an Egyptian report that the move was decided following an announcement this month by David Cameron, the British prime minister, of an inquiry into the Islamist group.
Mr Merley’s site says Graz has long been a favoured city of residence for prominent officials of the group.
However, the Turkish Anadolu news agency quoted Ibrahim Munir, the Brotherhood’s secretary-general, as denying any intention to set up offices in Austria.
“I cannot accept or imagine leaving London for any country,” Mr Munir said from the British capital.
He also dismissed repeated reports that the Brotherhood is based there.
“The group is not led from London,” Anadolu quoted him as saying. “The organisational decisions are not made here.“
His comments were reinforced by a Brotherhood spokesman, Abrar Sayed, in response to questions from The National. "There is no headquarters for the Muslim Brotherhood in London," he said.
“People who follow the Muslim Brotherhood ideologies in London and elsewhere outside of Egypt do their best to support the anti-coup movement in Egypt.
“The only official Muslim Brotherhood activities from outside Egypt are the International Criminal Court case that the Muslim Brotherhood raised against the military junta, and the Muslim Brotherhood press office. The Muslim Brotherhood press office is not moving to any other country.”
This is wholly at odds with the Egyptian report cited by the GMBDW that appeared on the youm7.com Arabic website. It said the decision on a relocation from London was taken at a meeting attended by the Brotherhood’s permanent members, Ibrahim Salah, Dr Mahmoud Hussein and Mr Munir.
Despite the uncertainty, it is clear that London has been a location for the Brotherhood since the mid 1990s. Its first representative in the UK, Kamal El Helbawy, spoke in the early years of a small number of members but said “many Muslims in the UK intellectually support the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood”.
He described its objectives then as limited to the dissemination of information on Islam and challenging false or misleading claims from anti-Islam elements.
But Dr El Helbawy has become one of the Brotherhood’s strongest Muslim critics, deploring the “fatal mistakes” of the leadership in forming coalitions with “militant terrorist forces”.
In an October interview with the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, he said: "For the first time, the flag of Al Qaeda has been raised in Cairo ... and the Brotherhood must bear the burden of the violence that has fallen on the [Egyptian] people and police, particularly the events in Aswan, Karadsa and elsewhere."
But the extent and influence of the Brotherhood’s UK-based activities are difficult to establish. The wording the British government used to explain its inquiry – to be conducted by senior diplomatic and intelligence figures – demonstrates how little is known, even at the senior-official level.
Mr Cameron has asked Sir John Jenkins, the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to report on the Brotherhood’s “philosophy and values and alleged connections with extremism and violence”. Saudi Arabia last month declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group.
Sir Kim Darroch, the prime minister’s national-security adviser, and Sir John Sawers, the current chief of Britain’s MI6 secret intelligence service and a former ambassador to Egypt, are also involved in the study.
A British official has been quoted as describing the Brotherhood as “a large, disparate organisation that takes different forms in different countries.”
As one example of the differences, the Union of Islamic Organisation in France (UOIF), widely seen as ideologically close to the Brotherhood, has become deeply involved in education. The UOIF recently joined another Muslim group to create a representative body for fee-paying Muslim schools that attract funding from the state, though the Brotherhood formally denies any link.
In Britain, the Brotherhood has hired a leading UK lawyer, Lord Macdonald, a former head of Britain’s prosecution service, to advise it in connection with the inquiry and to prepare legal challenges to any attempt to restrict its operations.
Some commentators have criticised the government’s investigation. Baroness Falkner, a Liberal Democrat member of Britain’s House of Lords, told parliament that if the organisation was suspected of committing terrorist offences, existing counter-terrorism laws should be used to prosecute.
“If, on the other hand, the inquiry is being driven at the behest of Saudi Arabia to discredit the Brotherhood, it is the UK government and indeed the UK foreign policy that risks being discredited.”
In a statement issued in response to Mr Cameron’s announcement, the Brotherhood said it would “openly engage with the British government’s review and will make representations to assist the Government’s inquiry into the organisation’s philosophy and values, its policies and its track record both in and out of government”.
In his replies to The National, Mr Sayed said the Brotherhood had released numerous statements "that condemn all terrorist attacks that have occurred in Egypt, whether these attacks were against police or army forces or any other target".
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
