2025 review: Europe joins the tightening net around the Muslim Brotherhood and strengthens countermeasures
From Germany to Sweden, via France, the Muslim Brotherhood has not faced setbacks in Europe on the scale witnessed in 2025, a year marked by a widening crackdown.
The Muslim Brotherhood and its network of affiliated organizations have suffered significant blows in France, Germany, Sweden and other European countries, giving renewed momentum to efforts aimed at countering political Islam.
In this report, it reviews the measures taken by several European states against the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islamist organizations more broadly.
Germany
In the latest move, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the second-largest
parliamentary bloc in the Bundestag, submitted an urgent parliamentary question this week regarding the allocation of public funding to certain projects run by Brotherhood-linked entities, particularly the KLEEM organization. The party also called for an immediate parliamentary investigation into the matter.
At the same time, Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior announced the establishment of a permanent advisory council dedicated to combating political Islam and religious extremism. The initiative aims, in the longer term, to develop effective preventive policies to address this form of radicalization.
The council is expected to pave the way for a federal action plan against political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, in line with the commitments set out in the governing coalition agreement signed last spring.
A week earlier, Brotherhood-linked structures had already faced a judicial blow involving Saad Al-Jazzar, head of the Marwa El-Sherbini Cultural and Educational Center in Dresden. A German court convicted him of misappropriating worshippers’ donations for personal use and transferring funds to his private account.
He was charged with repeatedly taking money from the association’s treasury in 2019 and diverting more than 13,000 euros from donations made by worshippers at the center’s mosque during Friday prayers.
Al-Jazzar’s central role within the Muslim Brotherhood network in Germany, and his control over the group’s centers in the eastern state of Saxony, underscore the significance of judicial action aimed at countering the Brotherhood’s grip on Muslim communities and their financial resources.
Earlier this month, German authorities also dealt a decisive blow to Brotherhood-linked propaganda outlets by banning the organization Muslim Interaktiv, which was primarily active in online propaganda, and by conducting security raids on the premises of its leaders to collect evidence.
France
In France, authorities decided last June to dissolve the European Institute of Human Sciences (IESH), described as the country’s oldest imam training center, due to its “links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The decision followed the release of a security report on the Brotherhood’s activities in France and the threat it poses to security and society, marking an escalation in the crackdown on the group.
The report showed that 7 percent of Muslim places of worship in France are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and that the group constitutes a threat to national cohesion.
This comes amid growing pressure to intensify action against the Brotherhood and its networks, as well as media warnings about the threat the group poses to society and its alleged infiltration of political entities such as the far-left party La France Insoumise.
Sweden
The Muslim Brotherhood recently suffered a major setback in Sweden following the publication of a journalistic investigation revealing an ongoing security probe into suspected financial misconduct linked to the group.
The Swedish newspaper Expressen reported on an investigation into a network of imams and associations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, accused of embezzling large sums of taxpayer money through private educational institutions, including schools and childcare centers.
The network reportedly received government funding amounting to billions of kronor, serving as a front for suspicious financial transfers and large-scale fraud.
According to the investigation, Swedish authorities began monitoring the network’s
activities months ago after unpaid tax debts amounting to tens of millions accumulated, while some of those in charge were drawing substantial personal profits.
Expressen reported that several individuals involved abruptly left Sweden once oversight intensified, some heading to Middle Eastern countries and others to neighboring European states, leaving behind millions of kronor in tax debts.
The newspaper added that most of the institutions involved have closed in recent years, while official investigations continue and authorities are examining the possibility of broader networks or similar practices in other publicly funded sectors.
Switzerland
The measures taken against the Muslim Brotherhood in France rang alarm bells in Switzerland, where Swiss parliamentarian Jacqueline de Quattro of the Liberal Radical Party from the canton of Vaud called for a detailed report on the group’s presence and activities in the country.
She submitted a parliamentary motion requesting that the Federal Council prepare a report on “the presence, organization, networks of influence and methods of operation of political Islamist movements, particularly groups close to the Muslim Brotherhood, in Switzerland.”
The proposal enjoys broad cross-party support, including from the Green Liberal Party, The Centre, the Liberal Radical Party and the Swiss People’s Party.
Media reports suggest that Switzerland may move forward with a comprehensive review of the Brotherhood’s activities through an assessment launched by the Federal Department of Justice and Police, examining the group’s presence in religious, educational, social and digital spheres.
Austria
The past weeks have brought a major shock to Austria’s political circles following the revelation of a Muslim Brotherhood spy within the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence service. The affair has intensified calls to confront the group and ban its affiliated organizations in the country.
Following the revelations, the Freedom Party, Austria’s strongest political force, demanded a wide-ranging investigation to determine whether the spy had warned terrorists or obstructed, compromised or sabotaged counterterrorism operations.
What is particularly striking in this case is that it exposed ongoing investigations into the Muslim Brotherhood and its members within the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, with the spy allegedly passing information about these probes to the group, a key element of the indictment against him.
In February, the Freedom Party, a populist movement and the country’s leading party, submitted a draft resolution to parliament calling for a ban on political Islam.
The resolution advocates the adoption of a “ban on political Islam law,” targeting several organizations operating in Austria, most notably Brotherhood-linked groups, by consolidating various criminal and administrative provisions into a comprehensive legal framework capable of effectively countering this movement.
Ireland
From Austria to Ireland, where a senior parliamentarian pressured the government weeks ago to open an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in the country.
Independent Senator Sharon Keogan stated that the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood “has spread, and this is something the Irish government has not addressed.”
Her remarks followed the closure, since last April, of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Clonskeagh, Dublin’s largest mosque, amid concerns over alleged links between some of its administrators and radical Salafist currents, as well as suspicions of internal financial irregularities.
