Persecution by the state
From the “what are they thinking?!” files –
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group classified as a terrorist group in Egypt, qualify for asylum in the UK if they are considered under threat of persecution. In its revised guidelines on the group, the UK Home Office said that asylum can be sought over “a fear of persecution or serious harm by the state because of the person’s actual or perceived involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The 22-page document Country Information and Guidance Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood, was updated this month. It said that in cases of high profile supporters of the group, including journalists, at risk of persecution, “a grant of asylum would be appropriate.”
Well don’t stop there. Grant asylum to the people who took over Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last winter too, because they’re being “persecuted” by the state right now, for breaking a whole bunch of laws.
Uh… this is the most wtf post I’ve read of yours, and I’ve read 90% of what you’ve written over the past five years or so. You do realize that for all the Brotherhood’s numerous flaws, it was elected by a majority in Egypt, hundreds of their supporters were slaughtered in the streets last year by Sisi’s thugs, and thousands more are in jail? To my knowledge there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on any of their parts, other than that Morsi wasn’t particularly good at being president.
When the state has banned membership in your organization, slaughtered hundreds of its members, imprisoned thousands of others, and made it illegal to advocate for the organization… yes, I think that qualifies as persecution.
Enkidum, the problem with democracy is that it’s terribly messy and can result in anti-democratic Government. Egypt under the MB, Turkey under Erdogan, Russia under Putin and any number of other examples. What do you do about that? When a democratically elected Government proceeds to undermine, erode and disestablish both the laws and social norms that actually enable a functioning democracy? Leave them to it and you loose democracy.
My personal view is that a government or leader that acts to undermine democracy looses the legitimacy that the democratic election gave them initially. It’s one of the things that has caused so much anger and frustration against career politicians all over the western world. Their anti-democratic moves may have been minor in the scheme of things, but it causes intense anger and concern. The irony of course is that the people who have most effectively exploited that have been right-wing fascists and authoritarians who you can guarantee will dismantle functioning democracy just as fast as they can.
I can totally understand people fighting back in a way that we also perceive as anti-democratic. There’s that messiness again.
I do find it head-desk inducing that the UK is recognising MB members as a persecuted group. Might as well include ISIS and the Taliban in there as well under that definition.
I can’t understand how members of violent anti-democratic organisations should be eligible for asylum.
The democratic election argument is flawed, regimes should also govern democratically otherwise they lose their legitimacy. Most politicians in the ME are practitioners of the ‘democratically-elected authoritarian’ school of politics, Erdogan is just the latest example. Who would regard the Nazis as a legitimate government even though Hitler gained power constitutionally? Would members of the Khmer Rouge be eligible for asylum in Western democracies?
What, specifically, has the Egyptian MB done in, let’s say, the past 3 decades that qualifies as violent or anti-democratic?
You mean apart from making the first thing they did on taking power to be rewriting the constitution with a panel dominated by Islamists and refusing to acknowledge the concerns of other groups. Declaring that for Muslims the policy was to work toward the implementation of sharia law, which as we know is terribly friendly to women and atheists. Running a candidate for President, despite having promised not to. That President granting himself extraordinary powers by decree and following that up by implementing a limited form of martial law. Hmmm, nothing that would raise alarm bells for anyone who valued a secular democracy at all. /s
I gather that MB refugees (that is, the MB whenever their ‘special’ relationship with the current dictatorship in Egypt went south) used to go to Saudi. Hence the strangely chummy relationship between the MB and the Wahhabis.
Sayid Qutb’s brother taught at one of the big Saudi ‘universities’ while in exile.