The release of two Muslim Brotherhood figures from prison, the first since the army's removal of president Mohamed Morsi 14 months ago, has fanned speculation that secret reconciliation talks are taking place. Government officials and the Brotherhood's Secretary-General Mahmoud Hussein deny that a deal is being negotiated. But the appearance of splits in the ranks of the Brotherhood-led National Alliance in Support of Legitimacy and Against the Coup (NASLAC) suggest that talks are under way. Helmy Al-Gazar, Brotherhood leader and former parliamentary deputy, and Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud, a lawyer for the group, were released on bail pending trial in late August after spending a year in prison. Mohamed Al-Omda, another former member of parliament known to be close to the Brotherhood, has also been released. Following his release, Al-Omda announced an initiative at a news conference in his hometown of Aswan. While he continued to call Morsi's removal on 3 July 2013 an “army-led coup”, he called on the Brotherhood to accept Al-Sisi as de facto president for a transitional period, during which the group's leaders would be released from prison and allowed to reenter politics. The government designated the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation in December and the police have cracked down hard on the group's leaders, freezing their financial assets and detaining large numbers of its members. The Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, has also been banned. While the most senior Brotherhood leaders, including General Guide Mohamed Badie and his first deputy Khairat Al-Shater, are in prison, some figures are living in exile. They were quick to reject Al-Omda's initiative. From Qatar, Yehia Hamed, who served as minister of investment under Morsi, wrote on his Twitter account: “One word: No initiatives.” Gamal Heshmat, a former member of parliament now in Turkey, said the group “will act like we have heard nothing.” Hussein, among the seven leaders of the group who were asked to leave Qatar on Saturday, issued a statement saying the Brotherhood “remains committed to continuing its peaceful revolutionary struggle until we get rid of the coup.” He dismissed “ongoing campaigns aimed at letting those who carried out the coup escape being held accountable.” Said Hussein: “We will not provide those in power with a safe exit. We will not allow any criminal to escape from justice.” The main obstacles to any agreement being reached with the government and security bodies is the Brotherhood's insistence on restoring the pre-3 July 2013 order, reinstating Morsi and holding Al-Sisi accountable for leading the “coup” against a democratically elected president and for the deaths of hundreds of the group's members. Statements insisting that the Brotherhood and its supporters will continue with their almost daily protests cannot hide the cracks that have appeared within the Brotherhood itself and among the parties and groups that make up NASLAC. The pro-Morsi Al-Wasat Party, led by Abul-Ela Madi was the first to suspend its membership of the alliance. Madi split from the Brotherhood nearly 20 years ago and has been in prison for past 14 months. The party's leadership has been at loggerheads for months over whether or not to remain in NASLAC. Three members of Al-Wasat's executive board have resigned in protest at the alliance's strategy of depending on violent street protests to press their case. But Wasat Party leaders in Qatar, Hatem Azzam and former minister of parliamentary affairs Mohamed Mahsoub, rejected the party's decision to leave the alliance, refusing to make any compromise that recognised the current regime. Several newspapers, including Al-Shorouk and Al-Masry Al-Youm, say Al-Wasat Party President Madi, known as a moderate, and former parliamentary speaker and Brotherhood leader Saad Al-Katatni top the list of those now expected to be released from prison. They will then be expected to communicate with the more hard-line leadership abroad. There are also reports that Mohamed Ali Beshr, minister of local development under Morsi and the most senior Brotherhood leader in Egypt not to be detained, is considering forming a new political party that would allow moderate Brotherhood members to run in the upcoming parliament elections. Beshr, who was involved in negotiations with European, US and Qatari envoys following Morsi's removal, denies the reports. “The government of the coup is circulating rumours to create the impression that there are splits in our ranks,” he says. Two Brotherhood leaders — Ragheb Al-Sergani and Mohamed Al-Serougi — have clearly broken ranks, openly calling for the group to reconsider its strategy of opposition to Al-Sisi. Al-Sergani, a publisher and Islamist scholar who toured the country with Morsi during his election campaign in 2012, published an article on the Islamist website Qisat Al-Islam (The Story of Islam). In the article, he argued that it is wrong to equate fighting against a Muslim with fighting against an infidel leader when battling a Muslim tyrant who threatens the unity of the nation. A letter smuggled out of Al-Serougi's prison cell that criticizes the group's leadership has appeared on several Islamist websites. Muslim Brotherhood leaders, wrote Al-Serougi, should resign and allow the younger generation to take over. A source close to the Brotherhood says one reason many of the group's leaders are maintaining an anti-reconciliation position is fear of alienating swathes of young members who have faced the brunt of the security clampdown. Ahmed Al-Mogheer, a young Brotherhood leader in hiding, has openly criticised older leaders for being soft in their fight against the government and stopping short of supporting violent attacks against the police. In recent post on Facebook, Al-Mogheer said that while official Brotherhood statements, such as those of Hussein, claimed no compromises were acceptable “they were conducting secret negotiations with US, European and British officials to work on an accommodation with Al-Sisi.” The spectre of splits in the Brotherhood-led alliance has clearly alarmed the group. The latest of the weekly addresses that the Brotherhood posts on its website, posted on 5 September, is titled “Warning from the Trap of Friendly fire.” It acknowledged that developments in Arab countries since the so-called Arab Spring has led to differences among supporters of Islamist groups. “What we reject is that these differences in views lead to splits and the exchange of accusations … and we refuse to listen to the allegations of those who support the coup inside and outside. “Most dangerous as we get close to victory,” it argued, “is to give our ears to hypocrites who support the coup, or to fall into the sin of exchanging charges of treason … We don't want the term friendly fire, used by Bush in his war against Iraq in 2003, to infect our front.”
