OTTAWA — A Jewish advocacy group has called on the federal government to follow the United States’s lead and designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
In a press conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, members of Jewish advocacy group Tafsik described the Muslim Brotherhood as a “real and immediate threat” to Canada’s democracy.
“We need urgent action by our government to protect all Canadians now. Designate Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization now,” said Tafsik executive director Amir Epstein.
He went so far as to argue that “Canada will undoubtedly fall” if the government does not act against “Canadian Islamist organizations connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Epstein was flanked by Shannon Seban, a French politician and Jewish activist, and Mohammad Tawhidi, who goes by the moniker “Imam of Peace.” Both echoed his call to the Canadian government.
The Muslim Brotherhood is a pan-Islamist movement born in Egypt in the 1920s that has driven the growth of various groups across the Middle East. It is currently banned as a terrorist organization in various Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt.
Last month, the United States designated
the Lebanese, Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
“Chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood purport to be legitimate civic organizations while, behind the scenes, they explicitly and enthusiastically support terrorist groups like Hamas,” read a
Jan. 13 release by the U.S. Department of Treasury
.
Last year,
a report prepared by two French civil servants
for France’s government warned that the Muslim Brotherhood movement posed a “threat to national cohesion” within the European country.
Jewish groups such as B’Nai Brith Canada have long called for the federal government to list the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, though they have ramped up their calls since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel.
In January,
B’Nai Brith exhorted its members
to write Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree to push him to follow the U.S.’s lead.
Canada has already listed groups who spun off from the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, including Hamas. According to the listing, Hamas “emerged from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987.”
But though it has become popular in certain political circles to push for the listing of the Muslim Brotherhood, doing so is easier said than done, says Middle East researcher and professor Thomas Juneau.
That’s because the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t a single group but a movement born in the 20th century in Egypt that underpins individual chapters in multiple countries across the world, he noted.
“Even individual chapters are often more loose movements than unified groups,” said Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
Some of those groups, such as what evolved into modern-day Hamas, are “undeniably” terrorist organizations and have rightfully been designated as such by Canada, he noted. But some others are not, he added, making listing the movement as a whole a terrorist organization extremely challenging.
“Some Muslim Brotherhood groups are clearly not violent, they are clearly not terrorists,” Juneau said. “They adhere to a fairly conservative and pious version of political Islam, but they are not terrorists.”
Wednesday, Tawhidi acknowledged the complexity of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization but pressed Canada to move forward.
“Just because they are difficult to put a finger on, and it’s somewhat technically challenging to designate the entire organization… it does not mean that we do nothing about it at all,” Tawhidi said.
“Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood will be designated. The question is, when will the courageous people, the lawmakers, take this stand?”
National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com
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