An Egyptian news news portal has reported that Mahdi Bray, the Director of the Muslim American Society’™s Freedom Foundation, was in Cairo this week “to express solidarity with Muslim Brotherhood detainees on trial before a military court and to call for an end to the crackdown on the Egyptian opposition.” According to the report, Mr. Bray explained that he made the trip to express the concern of the MAS “about the use of military tribunals in Egypt, as in the United States.” The Muslim American Society is a less well-known part of the Muslim Brotherhood network in the U.S. that first came to national attention when the Chicago Tribune did a feature story on the group in September 2004. In that story, the head of the MAS denied any connection with the Muslim Brotherhood stating:
Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS, but MAS went way beyond that point of conception…Now, he says, his group has no connection with the Brotherhood and disagrees with the international organization on many issues.
No explanation was given for why an MAS official would expend time and funds expressing “solidarity” with a group with which the MAS continue to say it has no connection.