Egypt definitively lists the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity

Egyptian authorities have definitively placed the Muslim Brotherhood on the country’s list of terrorist entities, following years in which the movement was banned and its listing renewed temporarily.

The decision was published in the Official Gazette on Monday. It rests on two earlier judicial rulings: a judgment issued in 2023 by the Cairo Criminal Court’s Second Terrorism Circuit and a ruling delivered in April this year by the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court.

Under the Terrorist Entities Law, listing entails banning the entity, halting its activities, closing premises allocated to it, and prohibiting its meetings. It also prohibits financing the entity or collecting funds or goods for its benefit, directly or indirectly. Its funds and assets must be frozen, along with those it controls or from which it derives income. Joining the entity, encouraging others to join, promoting it or displaying its slogans is also prohibited.

The movement had been listed on a temporary basis since 2015, with Egyptian courts repeatedly renewing its designation.

Founded in 1928 in Ismailia, east of Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood has had its activities banned several times over the subsequent decades.

Following the wave of uprisings known as the Arab Spring in 2011, the movement gained control of parliament, the constitution-drafting committee and the presidency.

By mid-2013, however, millions of Egyptians had taken to the streets in demonstrations of unprecedented scale in the country to demand its removal, following its failure to address economic crises.

According to the account presented in the article, following the events of 30 June 2013, described as a “revolution”, the movement mobilised armed members at two prominent sit-ins in Cairo and launched a series of terrorist operations, including forming groups to assassinate officials.

Most of the movement’s leaders are currently held in Egyptian prisons following convictions for terrorism offences. They include Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie, his deputies Mahmoud Ezzat and Khairat al-Shater, and numerous other senior figures.

How the law defines a terrorist entity

Law No. 8 of 2015 concerning terrorist entities and terrorists defines a terrorist entity as follows:

“Associations, organisations, groups, gangs, cells or other groupings, regardless of their legal form or actual structure, that carry out the following acts or whose purpose is to advocate, by any means, within or outside the country, harming individuals, spreading terror among them or endangering their lives, freedoms, rights or security; damaging the environment, natural resources, antiquities, communications, land, air or sea transport, funds, buildings, or public or private property, or occupying or seizing such buildings or property; or preventing or obstructing the functioning of public authorities, judicial bodies or agencies, government departments, local administrative units, places of worship, hospitals, educational institutions and institutes, or other public facilities.

“This also includes actions against diplomatic and consular missions or regional and international organisations and bodies in Egypt that prevent them from performing their work or conducting all or part of their activities, or that resist their operations; disrupting public or private transport, preventing or obstructing its movement, or endangering it by any means; or advocating, by any means, disturbing public order, endangering society’s safety, interests or security, obstructing the application of the Constitution or laws, preventing a state institution or public authority from performing its functions, infringing citizens’ personal liberty or other public freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the law, or harming national unity, social peace or national security.

“These provisions apply to the aforementioned entities and persons whenever they carry out, seek to carry out or intend to carry out any of these acts, even when such acts are not directed against the Arab Republic of Egypt.”