Local media is reporting on comments by Congressman Keith Eillison (D-MN) in which he calls fears of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt a “scarecrow.” According to a report in the Star Tribune:
Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison called the secular Egyptian revolution a “stunning rebuke to al-Qaidaism” and called fears of a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood a “scarecrow.” Appearing on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Thursday night, Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress, said “This is a group of people who are rejecting al-Qaedaism, rejecting religious extremism and saying they want what we already have, which is democracy. We got to stand on the side of that.”
Ellison is the first Muslim-American to be elected to Congress. Previous posts have discussed the controversy over his trip to Mecca which was funded by the Muslim American Society, a well-known U.S. Muslim Brotherhood group close to the Egyptian organization.