The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood website has complained about what it calls “stories of alleged secret engagement between the UK and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
The statement refers to the recent article in a U.K. magazine by a former member of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office unit dealing with engagement with the Islamic world. That article discusses his motivations for leaking a series of documents which were published in 2005 by a U.K think-tank and which disclose what were called “flirtations with radical Islam” by the U.K government. According to the website of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood:
Executive Bureau senior member Muhammad Mursi denied any such contact saying, the Muslim Brotherhood is a social and public entity which deals openly with other public organizations and NGOs. We take part in conferences and seminars; we have numerous contacts with western media, think-tanks, and rights groups for one clear purpose: to highlight our Moderate Islamist trend which does not embrace violence and condemns it wherever it is committed, be that by individuals, organizations, groups, or even countries. Mursi added that the government of Egypt, represented by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, should be the MB’s channel for any official contact with foreign governments.
However, neither the recent article nor the 2005 document claim that such contact took place, only that they were contemplated. The statement does speak to how closely the Brotherhood in Egypt follows developments in the West, probably aided global Brotherhood organizations in various countries. The inaccuracy of this statement does not speak well for the ability of the Brotherhood to correctly analyze the information it receives.