BREAKING NEWS FROM CAIRO:
2 1/2 months after Morsi was deposed, Egypt’s High Court orders gov’t to seize funds & administer the frozen assets in toughest crackdown on Islamist movement in decades.
An Egyptian court on Monday banned the Muslim Brotherhood from carrying out any activities in the country and ordered the seizure of the group’s funds, widening a campaign to debilitate the Islamist movement of deposed President Mohammed Morsi.
Pro-Morsi demonstrators chant slogans at Nasr City in Cairo, July 28, 2013. – Photo: AP
“The court bans the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood organization and its non-governmental organization and all the activities that it participates in and any organization derived from it,” said the presiding judge Mohammed al-Sayed.
The court ordered the government to seize the Brotherhood’s funds and administer its frozen assets.
The army-backed government is waging the toughest crackdown in decades on the Islamist group, which says it has a million members. Security forces killed hundreds of its supporters and rounded up thousands more since Morsi was deposed by the army on July 3 after mass protests against his rule.
The Brotherhood won parliamentary and presidential elections after veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011.
Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s toppling of Morsi triggered a political crisis in the Arab world’s most populous state, with the Brotherhood insisting that a military coup robbed them of power.
The court decision is likely to drive more Brotherhood members underground and it may encourage young Islamists to take up arms against the state.
View original HAARETZ publication at: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.548497
Israeli New Shekel Exchange Rate