CAIRO: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has filed a lawsuit against the daily newspaper al-Dostour over a report the paper published alluding to the Islamic group as a potential danger to the country. In a statement issued on Friday, the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) legal department said that it filed a libel and defamation case against the newspaper's board and Editor-in-chief as a result of the “slander published by the newspaper against the Freedom and Justice Party in the issue dated Thursday, June 21, which accused the party of holding a secret meeting to develop a plan to bring confusion and chaos” to the country. The newspaper said the Brotherhood and its FJP were planning an armed confrontation with the military junta in charge of the country. The statement went on to say that the “owners [of al-Dostour] want to tarnish the image of the party and its leaders.” They claimed this was a similar tactic used by the old regime of now ousted and jailed President Hosni Mubarak. The entire report is “a lie,” the Brotherhood statement added. The statement continued to argue that the newspaper must be investigated over “the accuracy and objectivity … and uphold the interests of Egypt before looking for snap publishing of libelous information merely intended to distort” the party and group's image.
