June 30 Revolution: a quake that caused cracks in Muslim Brotherhood

CAIRO – 1 July 2018: Since the June 30 Revolution broke out in 2013 against the currently banned Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohamed Morsi, the group has suffered a series of local and international splits, causing deep cracks that do not necessarily lead to its collapse.

In spite of the fact that the group suffered from a state of dissent within its members since 2014 after the group turned into the violent approach, the group released on the fifth anniversary of the June 30 Revolution a statement that incites people to “protest” against the current government. The statement was published on their unverified Facebook account on Saturday.

When the members and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood protested against the ouster of Morsi and staged the two sit-ins of Nahda and Rabaa squares in Egypt, many bloody attacks and riots broke out nationwide, pushing the interim government to label the group as a terrorist organization in December 2013. Since then, hundreds of members and supporters of the Brotherhood were imprisoned, while others fled the country.



Due to this blow against the Brotherhood, hundreds of imprisoned members have signed a document to disown from the group since 2014. Most recently, a total of 360 of the Brotherhood members in Beheira governorate - hometown of the group founder Hassan al-Banna, signed the document in May 2017, saying that the group “turned from its peaceful approach into a violent one.”

Two months later, another group of detainees in Fayoum and Beni Suef governorates (Upper Egypt) announced their dissent from the outlawed group, which was designed as a terrorist group by post- June 30 Revolution interim government in 2013.

“We are a group of prisoners in Fayoum General Prison. We decided to be nonpartisan in the Muslim Brotherhood […] Some of us did not organizationally belong to the Brotherhood […]and some of us are organizationally associated to it and then decided to dissociate from the group,” their letter of dissent read. They indicated the group has suffered a state of division within its members after calling the group leaders to reject violence.

“We concluded that the Brotherhood was an integral part of the crisis experienced by Egypt and that it is fueling the conflict […] by denying that former President Mohamed Morsi was rejected by the state institutions and key sectors of Egyptian society,” they said in their letter.

The internal dissension within the group is not the only crack it suffers from; the memberships of some of the group's members were frozen due its violent approach. In January 2017, the memberships of Chairperson of the Office of the Muslim Brotherhood Abroad Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, and Magdy Shalash, a member of the High Administrative Committee of the Brotherhood, were suspended as they “incited violence” in media comments given to Qatar-owned Al Jazeera channel.

Divisions in the management of the High Administrative Committee for the Brotherhood’s affairs reached its climax in 2016, when former head of the committee, Mohamed Kamal, resigned and disowned from it. However, followers of Kamal, who was killed by the Egyptian police in fire exchange in October 2016, dissented and formed another parallel group against the Brotherhood's acting guide Mahmoud Ezzat.

The Muslim Brotherhood also saw a series of international dissensions following the June 30 Revolution; in 2016, the Brotherhood-affiliate Nahdah party Chairperson Rached Ghannouchi dissociated the group, while the Jordanian branch also split from the international organizations.

Meanwhile, the MB branch in Morocco was practicing pressure on Egypt’s organization to start revising their rules and disown the current leaders, said Tareq al-Bishbeishi, an MB dissent member in media remarks in December 2016.

However, expert of the Islamic Movements Hesham al-Naggar ruled out that the Brotherhood of Egypt can review their current approach because they did not do so when they came to power in 2012.

The international splits of the Muslim Brotherhood could be “maneuvers” by the organization's branches to survive after the group was designated a terrorist group in Egypt due to inciting violence, Naggar told Egypt Today on Saturday.

He added that it is difficult to say that a big organization like the Muslim brotherhood could collapse fast, stressing that each country has its own political nature and atmosphere.

The first case of dissension within the group dated back to 1939, when a group of members led by Mahmoud Abu Zeid Othman announced their disagreement with Banna, forming another dissent group known as Shabab Muhammad (Muhammad’s Youth). In 2011, former Presidential candidate Abdel Mouneim Aboul Fetouh disowned from the group in rejection to its administration following the January 25 Revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year tenure. Also, former member Ibrahim el-Zaafrani resigned in objection to “maladministration” of the group.

Kamal el Helbawy, the former spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, also dissented from the group in 2012, when it was announced that the currently imprisoned member Khairat al-Shater would run for 2012 presidential election. Other members, including Mohamed Habib, Abdel-Sattar al-Melegy, also disowned from the group. The dissention within the group is not new; however, the post-30 June Revolution mass dissension was a severe blow to the group.