Three months ago, I was coming back to Egypt from Turkey after a 10-day trip. My friend, Magdy Saad, and I were held in the airport for two days, and then I was transferred to the state security office in Mansoura, where I am from. After a week of detention and daily investigations, I was released, without them even blaming me for anything. Shortly after, Dr. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Executive Bureau and the Secretary-General of the Arab Doctors Union, was arrested with fake charges that have no judicial foundation. Aboul Fotouh is one of the few men who could clarify the ideology of refusing takfeer (claiming someone an apostate) and violence within the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s and 1980s. Aboul Fotouh was the leader of the “reform trend†within the Muslim Brotherhood. He has reformist ideas related to women’s role in society, he supports women and Copts to be president and he is also one of the most acceptable faces in the MB in terms of youth and all colors of the political spectrum in Egypt. Three days after Aboul Fotouh’s detention, state security arrested Dr. Ashraf Abdel Ghafar, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Egyptian Medical Association, at Cairo International Airport on his way to Turkey. Since then, he has been arbitrarily detained, tortured and has been unable to receive his necessary medical treatment, according to al-Karama Human Rights Center. Okay, these incidents are all in a series of violations that were committed against moderate Muslim Brotherhood members in Egypt. These arbitrary detentions are all evidence that the Egyptian regime won’t walk a step in the direction of democracy and respecting freedom of speech and human rights in the country. I think we should talk to the Egyptian government and ask for reforms, because any reforms made by the Muslim Brotherhood will be a waste of time in such an autocratic regime. We all are asking the MB to make reforms and compromises, without considering the circumstances surrounding the Brotherhood itself. The point here is that the Egyptian government does not allow moderate Islamist groups to work in a free and democratic atmosphere. This has opened the door for Wahhabis and Salafis (ultra-conservative Islamic sects) to fill the gap. We have now more radicals who don’t believe in women’s roles in society. We are meeting everyday more and more people who are refusing democracy and modern law. They are saying this due to their erring views of Islam. Closing doors in the face of the Brotherhood in Egypt by banning them from using legal means to talk to the Egyptian people will open the same doors that enable people to receive wrong values from the Salafis and Wahhabis. The Brotherhood got rid of the Qutbic (Sayyid Qutb-led ideology) ideas of takfeer by spreading ideas of the late Supreme Guide Hassan al-Houdaiby, who wrote the famous book “Preachers not Judges.†So, the only way in fighting the misconceptions of Islam is to open the door for moderates. I believe that one of the most successful ways to get rid of extremism and violence in the modern Islamic culture is to allow the MB, as the largest moderate Islamist group, to spread their ideas freely in a democratic way. If this does not happen, we all will suffer from terrorism and extremism in Egypt and the entire world. BM
