Jordan bans Muslim Brotherhood, seizes assets and offices

Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets on Wednesday, Interior Minister Mazen Fraya said.

There was no immediate comment from the movement, which has operated legally in Jordan for decades and has widespread grass-roots support in major urban centres and scores of offices across the country.

Jordan said last week it had arrested 16 Muslim Brotherhood members, alleging they were trained and financed in Lebanon and were plotting attacks involving rockets and drones on targets inside the kingdom.

Fraya said all the activities of the group would be banned and anyone promoting its ideology would be held accountable by law. The ban includes publishing anything by the group and closure and confiscation of all its offices and property, he added.

Scores of security personnel, acting on an order from the public prosecutor, raided Muslim Brotherhood offices and began searching for documents, officials said, adding that some had already been removed or destroyed in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence.

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential movements, has denied links to the alleged plot but admitted members may have engaged in an individual capacity.

Opponents of the Brotherhood, which is outlawed in most Arab countries, call it a dangerous group that should be crushed. The movement says it publicly renounced violence decades ago and pursues a peaceful vision.

‘FINAL DIVORCE’

“Today, there is no longer any banner bearing the name of the Muslim Brotherhood. This marks a final divorce between the state and the Brotherhood after decades of fluctuating between co-opting them and merely tolerating their presence,” said Mohammed Khair Rawashdeh, a political analyst.

Rawashdeh added that he expected the Jordanian authorities to take further steps to root out the Brotherhood.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Fraya said Muslim Brotherhood members had planned attacks on security targets and sensitive locations in Jordan, aiming to destabilise the country, but did not identify the targets.

Security forces said last week they had found a rocket manufacturing facility alongside a drone factory where short-range rockets were being developed, with at least one missile ready to be launched.

In a country where anti-Israel sentiment runs high, Muslim Brotherhood members have led some of the largest protests in the region in support of Hamas, their ideological allies, in what their opponents say allowed them to increase their popularity.

Like some of its neighbours seeking to curb political Islam, Jordan has been tightening restrictions on the Brotherhood in the last two years, forbidding some of its activities and arresting vocal anti-government dissenters.

International rights groups say that in the last four years Jordanian authorities have intensified persecution and harassment of political opponents and ordinary citizens using a string of laws to silence critical voices.

The Jordanian government says it tolerates public speech that does not incite violence.