Saturday, November 19, 2005

Muslim Brotherhood Wins 34 Seats in Egyptian Parliament

This is disturbing news. The AP story makes the Muslim Brotherhood sound rather benign:
The group, founded in 1928, calls for implementing Islamic law but has long been vague about what this means. Its members are conservative — advocating the veil for women and campaigning against perceived immorality in the media, for example — but the group insists it represents a more moderate face of Islam than the puritanical Wahhabi version that dominates Saudi Arabia.

In the past year, Brotherhood members have presented themselves as advocates of democratic reform and have tried to reach out to Christians, though most in Egypt's Christian minority oppose them.

The government generally tolerates the group, which renounced violence in the 1970s, but hundreds of members have been detained in recent months amid increased protests against Mubarak, Egypt's leader for 24 years.
The story does note that Coptic Christians are disturbed by the election results, and the last sentence of the article notes that the MB spawned Hamas. Dots nice.

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