It appears that the Muslim Brotherhood has established a second front website and coined a new term in the process. According to a description of itself, the Ikhwanophobia website explains:
Ikhwanophobia is a new term meaning the fear and or hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood members and their ideologies. It also refers to the unjustified intimidation by the people of the Muslim Brotherhood members. Ikhwanophobes are the factions who call for discrimination towards Muslim Brotherhood members and Muslims in general. They may be characterized by having the belief that all or most MB’s are religious fanatics, with violent tendencies towards non-Muslims, and reject as directly opposed to Islam such concepts as equality, tolerance, and democracy. Ikhwanophobes always attempt to link Muslim Brotherhood to terrorism and violence. Ikhwanophobia is completely linked to the Islamophobia term, where there are continued accusations of the Muslim societies and Islamic Centers in Europe or in the States of being affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood. Intimidation of the Muslim Brotherhood, of course, leads to many negative consequences that are contrary to basic human rights. It generates evident discrimination of the western Muslims who live in Europe and the US . This bias also forces public opinion and decision makers to reject many of the democratic choices of the Muslim and Middle Eastern peoples. Hence a set of negative assumptions are made of the entire group to the detriment of members of that group. Ikhwanophobia.com was established in the middle of the year 2010. It is run by a group of Academic intellectuals who believed they should act positively and effectively in response to accusations and allegations that face the Muslim Brotherhood. We at Ikhwanophobia.com are determined to shed light on the accusations and allegations against the MB illustrating to the world the true face of moderate Islamists. Ikhwanophobia.com is also concerned with exposing the claimants and Ikhwanophobes. Ikhwanophobia.com aspires to open a new gateway for Ikhwanophobia victims encouraging them to share their sufferings. The website welcomes and encourages unbiased and impartial participation in defending the absolute values of justice, freedom and human rights.
The Ikhwanophobia website is hosted on the same server currently hosting the Ikhwanscope website which as discussed in an earlier post, purports to be “an independent Muslim Progressive and moderate non-profit site” but which actually appears to be a front organization of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Ikhwanscope website was first registered in December 2009 and according to archived domain registration records, at one time shared the same administrative contact (mb4web@yahoo.com) with the domain of the official Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood English-language website, both domains at that time registered in Cairo, Egypt but hosted in the U.S. with Theplanet.com, a Dallas-based Internet hosting company that is known to have hosted Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas websites in the past. Ikhwanophobia was also established around the same time as Ikhwanscope and the server hosting the two sites also hosts 22 other related domains including Brotherhoodphobia.com, Ikhwanwiki.com, and freeshater.com, a website dedicated to the cause of the imprisoned Brotherhoood leader Khairat Al-Shater.. One of these domains hosted on the Ikhwanophobia server, ikhwanweeb.com, points to the main Muslim Brotherhood domain and website.
A recent post on Ikhwanophobia takes the opportunity to attack the GMBDW over a recent post on a proposed new mosque in Tennesee accusing us of “hate speech”:
Evident discrimination is being illustrated by a numbered few in the town of Murfreesboro Tennessee as they judged the centre not only with Islamophobic but also Ikhwanophobic tendencies, simply by studying books and reading lists available at the centre. Since Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi is one of the most influential Muslim Scholars alive it is only natural that the centre includes his writings on its list. The determined ignorance of man’s intellectual value clearly exposes the many hidden agendas of the editors of globalmbreport to continue to not only conceal the truth but fabricate issues. It is illogical to allege that every Muslim is affiliated to the GMB purely on the grounds that he reads Qaradawi’s writings. Taha Gaber Al-Elwani also is one of the few Muslim inspirational intellectuals, who lived in the US and was successful in creating a breakthrough of the Islamic perceptions during the last 4 decades. Accusing individuals of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood is not only judgmental but indicative to Muslims and Muslim Brotherhood members.In fact the addition of other great writers on the IMC’s list such as Harun Yahya, J. Esposito and Akbar Ahmed confirms that they are important and respected intellectuals.The distortion of facts is not only unacceptable; but an unjust violation of the most basic of human rights. Once again the GMBR attempts to twist the truth in an effort to serve its hate speech.
The GMBDW stands by this post which, contrary to the Ikhwanophobia accusation, stated only “the ICM reading list suggests, at the least, an ideological affiliation with the US Muslim Brotherhood” and included multiple works from Brotherhood authors as evidence. Nowhere in this post is it suggested that “every Muslim is affiliated to the GMB purely on the grounds that he reads Qaradawi’s writings.” It is interesting, however, that Ikhwanophobia appears to accept the existence of the Global Muslim Brotherhood (GMB). In the past, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has attacked the idea of a Global Muslim Brotherhood as “a Hollywood fiction.” The Egyptian Brotherhood has long denied the existence of any kind of international network. However, in June 2008 the first Deputy chairman of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was asked about the “international Muslim Brotherhood and replied:
There are entities that exist in many countries all over the world. These entities have the same ideology, principle and objectives but they work in different circumstances and different contexts. So, it is reasonable to have decentralization in action so that every entity works according to its circumstances and according to the problems it is facing and in their framework.
Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the current leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has said in a 2005 interview that the Muslim Brotherhood was present in “70 countries”
It should also be noted that establishing multiple, redundant organizations and websites and then denying their relationship to the Brotherhood is standard operating procedure for the Global Muslim Brotherhood who appear to understand that by doing so, the illusion of greater breadth and legitimacy is established.