360 Brotherhood members disown group in police reports

CAIRO – 31 May 2017: A total of 360 members and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Delta’s Beheira Governorate have signed collective reports at police stations disowning the group on accusations of turning from a “preaching body” into an entity that incites violence and sabotage.

Security sources said many Brotherhood members attributed their disavowal of the group to the “deceit of its leaders and the collapse of all the dreams and promises to which they have aspired in the past years,” arguing that the leaders of the group “jeopardized its members and led them into jail to no avail.”

Prior to the January 25 Revolution in 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood seemingly focused on preaching and were committed to the ideological revisions that their second Supreme Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi instigated after the assassination attempt of President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954, the members explained.

Hudaybi wrote a book at the time titled “Preachers Not Judges,” as an ideological revision for the group.

The members emphasized they do not condone any bloodshed in which the group is implicated, and condemned the Brotherhood for attacks that aim to “tear the country apart,” wondering “in whose interest?” according to the sources.

Yehia al-Khawalqa, a leading figure of the group in Beheira and the Freedom and Justice Party, is one of the signatories.