DOHA: While the UAE authorities reiterated their allegation against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt of conspiring to topple the Gulf regimes, a senior Brotherhood leader yesterday challenged the UAE government to produce solid documents to prove the allegation.
The UAE’s foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahayan said yesterday that Gulf Arab countries should work together to stop the Muslim Brotherhood plotting to undermine governments in the region.
Dubai’s outspoken police chief Dhahi Khalfan had earlier said that there was an “international plot” against Gulf states by the Brotherhood.
When sought his comments on Khalfan’s statement, Dr Jamal Hishmat, a senior Brotherhood leader and a member of the dissolved Egyptian parliament said such statements only reflected the prejudiced views of “people who are behind him.”
“When a senior official takes sides against someone, we should not listen to him because he is not expressing his personal views. He is representing the biased views of people behind him,” said Hishmat.
The Brotherhood leader was here to attend a symposium on Islamists and democracy in the Arab Spring countries which concluded here yesterday.
“We don’t have any secret cells or organisations in Egypt or outside the country. Muslim Brotherhood does not believe in secret operation. We go undergroud only on rare occasions such as to escape killing and torture by the goverment and that too for a short time. Secret cells are an Al Qaeda strategy awhich has nothing to do with the Brotherhood,” he added.
He said there are families in the Gulf countries owing allegiance to the Brotherhood “who are under constant monitoring” by intelligence organizations of these countries.
“It is better for officials to keep away from making such one-sided statements. If they have solid proof let them present it,” said Hishmat.
The UAE earlier this year had arrested a group of around 60 men who belonged to the local Islamist group Al Islah.
Last month, local media reported that some of those detained had confessed that their organisation was running an armed wing and had been plotting to take power and establish an Islamist state. Al-Islah has since denied this.
The reports also said the group was coordinating with Brotherhood organisations in three other Gulf Arab countries, and that they had recently received up to 10 million dirhams ($3.67 million) from a counterpart in another Gulf Arab country.
Al Islah says it shares a similar ideology with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt but has no direct links and is pushing for only peaceful reforms.
The UAE stripped seven Islamists of their citizenship last year on national security grounds.
The Peninsula
