In a statement released on Tuesday, Muslim Brotherhood Secretary General Mahmoud Hussein said that “the activities and struggles” of the group against corruption and tyranny are “based on absolute peacefulness and the renunciation of violence in all of its forms”.
In his statement, which topped 2,000 words, Hussein reiterated the Brotherhood’s 1995 stance on violence and cited Quranic verses.
Hussein renewed the Brotherhood’s rejection of violence and coercion and all forms of “putschists’ actions”, which are tearing the unity of the country.
The Brotherhood believes that in tandem with the “security attack waged by the military coup’s authority”, there was also a “media campaign that aims to demonise the group” and associate it with false accusations.
“The Muslim Brotherhood has announced dozens of times over the past few years that they engage in political life committed to legitimate means and peaceful approaches alone,” the statement read.
The statement presented various situations in which the Brotherhood did not resort to violence, including after the “brutal torture” that its members faced inside prisons in 1954 and 1965, “which ended the lives” of a number of them. After they were released, those who had tortured them “walked among them in the streets”, but the Brotherhood members “did not subject them to a word or action that may harm them”, the statement read.
The statement said that the group also remained peaceful after being subjected to a large arrest campaign under the rule of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, one which affected 50,000 members, some of whom faced “military tribunals” while others faced “torture and murder”. “They were not dragged into violence and did not attain a single piece of weaponry,” the statement said.
“And when violence spread in Egypt in the 1990s, the Brotherhood condemned it with utmost frankness and clarity,” the statement added. The Brotherhood added that it had issued multiple statements condemning violence and expressing its opinion on it at the time.
The group’s methodology is to “reform one’s self, then reform the family, then society,” the statement said, adding that the group draws its ideas and principles from Islam.
Hussein’s statement also suggested that there have been unjust media campaigns against former president Mohamed Morsi and his family during his tenure, which included slander, lies and deceit.
On 25 December, the cabinet of former prime minister Hazem El-Beblawi designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, serving the organisation another blow after a court ruled in September to ban the organisation and confiscate its capital.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which Morsi hailed from, rejects Morsi’s ouster in July and the current interim authorities, and considers it a military coup.
Many prominent Brotherhood figures were arrested after his ouster and several others are being tried alongside Morsi, including Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie.
The former president currently stands four separate trials, which include insulting the judiciary, the 2011 Wadi Al-Natrun prison break, deadly violence that occurred outside the presidential palace in December 2012 and espionage.
