TerrorismEgyptian court bans all Hamas activities
An Egyptian earlier today (Tuesday) banned all activities of Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip since summer 2007. In December, the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist group, freezing its assets, making membership in the group a crime, and banning all its political activities. The Egyptian military, now holding effective power in Egypt, has always regarded Hamas as a security threat, accusing the group of supporting Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and Islamists radicals inside Egypt.
An Egyptian earlier today (Tuesday) banned all activities of Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip since summer 2007.
In December, the Egyptian government declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist group, freezing its assets, making membership in the group a crime, and banning all its political activities (see “Egypt designates Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization,” HSNW, 26 December 2013).
Al Jazeera reports that the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was in power, he embraced Hamas, which secular and liberal Egyptians saw as one more indication of his intent to turn Egypt into an Islamic theocracy
The Egyptian military, now holding effective power in Egypt, has always regarded Hamas as a security threat, accusing the group of supporting Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula and Islamists radicals inside Egypt.
The court today also ordered the closure of Hamas offices in Egypt.
Yahoo News quotes one of the judges overseeing the case to say that the court stopped short of declaring Hamas a terrorist group because the court did not have the jurisdiction to do so.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, said that “The decision harms the image of Egypt and its role towards the Palestinian cause. It reflects a form of standing against Palestinian resistance (to Israel).”
The court decision may make life for Hamas leaders difficult. A leading Hamas official, Musa Abu Marzouk, lives in Cairo and may now face imminent arrest. The only way out of the Gaza Strip is through Israel or Egypt, and now Hamas leaders are not welcome in both countries.
The case against Hamas was filed by a group of Egyptian lawyers after Morsi’s removal last July. The group asked the court to outlaw Hamas in Egypt and designate it a terrorist organization.
Even before today’s decision – and December designation of Hamas as a terrorist group – the post-Morsi, military-backed government in Cairo had already been limiting Hamas power.
Egypt’s military has paralyzed the Gaza economy by destroying most of the 1,200 tunnels used to smuggle merchandise and weapons into the Strip, which is under blockade by the Israeli Navy.
The Egyptian military has also intensified its campaign against Islamist insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula, an insurgency which has so far cost hundreds of Egyptian lives.
Yahoo News quotes Egyptian officials to say it could take years to undermine Hamas, but they say that working with Hamas’s main Palestinian political rival, the Western-supported Fatah movement, which runs the Palestinian Authority, and encouraging and supporting popular anti-Hamas semtiments in Gaza will weaken the group.
In early January, Cairo hosted the first conference of a new anti-Hamas youth group called Tamarud (“Rebel”), the name used by the Egyptian youth movement that spearheaded last year’s mass protests against Morsi.
Since July 2013, Egypt has arrested almost the entire Brotherhood leadership and thousands of its group members, and security forces have killed hundreds of pro-Mursi demonstrators in the streets.
