EGYPT TAKES OVER 1,300 NGOS FOR ALLEGED BROTHERHOOD LINKS

Kairo, 27 Ramadan 1436/14 July 2015 (MINA) – Egyptian authorities have seized more than 1,300 non-government organizations (NGOs) in the past 18 months for alleged links with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian official said.

Ezzat Khamis, the head of a government-appointed panel tasked with running the Brotherhood’s assets, said Monday that the Social Security Ministry has been tasked with running the seized NGOs.

In September 2013, an Egyptian court banned the activities of the decades-old Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which former President Mohamed Morsi hails.  Anadolu Agency reports as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

The court also ordered the group’s dissolution and the confiscation of its offices and funds.

Since then, scores of NGOs, schools and hospitals have been seized.

A Brotherhood source earlier told Anadolu Agency that a total of 342 hospitals, 1,107 NGOs, 174 schools and funds of 1,441 Brotherhood leaders have been seized by the government in the first eight months of 2014.

The Muslim Brotherhood was designated a “terrorist organization” by the Egyptian government in late 2013.

The Brotherhood, for its part, insists that it is committed to peaceful activism to reverse the military coup against democratically-elected Morsi. (T/P002/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)