US President Donald Trump is moving ahead with plans to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.
The President moved to declare the Islamist organisation with millions of members globally a terrorist enemy of the United States after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi.
The Brotherhood is already branded a terror organisation in several countries including Egypt where it was founded in 1928.
However, being designated a terror group by the US would imposes much wider and painful economic and travel sanctions on companies and individuals who interact with the targeted group.
The Egyptian president el-Sisi urged President Trump to take the action during a private meeting on April 9th.
Organisations active in Ireland such as the European Council for Fatwa and Research and the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe are considered by the US intelligence committee to be closely linked and at times indistinguishable from the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Ireland the Imam of the country’s largest Mosque in Clonskeagh, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, heads the Irish branch of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and is a senior member of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe.
The European Council for Fatwa and Research is headed by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian Islamic theologian based in Doha, Qatar, and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. Shiek Halawa’s son Ibrahim spent four years in prison in Egypt awaiting trial before being released after he was captured by security forces at a Muslim Brotherhood run Mosque in Cairo during fighting between the military and supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
Another Muslim leader in Ireland Dr Umar Al-Qadri has also publicly claimed that the Halawa’s are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and that Sheik Halawa is an important figure with the European branch of the organisation. The Imam also said that Ibrahim obviously went to Egypt to take part in pro-Muslim Brotherhood protests.
Most of the mainstream Irish media has ignored these facts however and taken claims by the Halawa family to have no connection to the Brotherhood at face value and along with the political establishment fawned over them.
It is unclear what such a move by the United State’s in designating the MB as a terror organisation would have in relation to the Irish governments soft touch when it comes to affiliates of the group.
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