Egypt Bans Radical Preachers, May Ban the Muslim Brotherhood

Expect a strongly worded letter from the Obama administration decrying Egypt’s move to ban these “mostly secular” Islamist preachers.

CAIRO- Egyptian authorities will bar 55,000 unlicensed clerics from preaching in mosques in the latest move against sympathizers of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, the minister of religious endowments said on Tuesday.

Egyptian authorities have been cracking down on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood since the army toppled him on July 3 following mass protests against his rule.

Minister of Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa said the clerics lack licenses to preach and were considered to be fundamentalist and a threat to the Egypt’s security.

He’s right. And there’s more.

The military-led authorities consider the Brotherhood a terrorist group and discussions are underway on the possibility of banning it.

That is a massive, and welcome, shift from the Egyptian military. During the so-called Arab Spring, the military reportedly struck a deal with the Brotherhood that ended up allowing the Brotherhood to organize and get elected. Now the army realizes that mistake and may ban the Brothers.

The Muslim Brotherhood was banned for decades in Egypt following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

Banning religious groups is anathema to us in the West, but the fact is, the Muslim Brotherhood founded the modern ideology from which the likes of al Qaeda, Hamas and Hizballah sprang and operate. They’re a threat to the entire world.