US media is reporting on what it calls a “Muslim Brotherhood generational divide” in connection with an offer made by Brotherhood members to renounce the group in exchange for their freedom. According to an Algemeiner report, Brotherhood leader in exile Ibrahim Munir expressed “shock” over the offer:
September 19, 2109 Muslim Brotherhood members imprisoned in Egypt offered last month to renounce the group and pay damages in exchange for their freedom. But it doesn’t appear the gambit will work, and the move has exposed a generational rift within the 91-year-old Sunni movement.A series of scandals have hit the mother group, including corruption allegations against its leaders who are accused of stealing donations and, recently, the indifference shown by the same leaders to the plight of the group’s imprisoned youth.As many as 1,500 Muslim Brotherhood youth who were convicted on a number of charges including terrorism, vandalism, and joining a terrorist-listed group in Egypt, signed a petition seeking a reconciliation with the government in exchange for vowing to renounce the Muslim Brotherhood’s extremism and politics.The petition included a pledge for each prisoner to pay $5,000 in reparations to the Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) development fund. No official response has come from the Egyptian government. But Muslim Brotherhood leaders expressed shock, especially 82-year-old Ibrahim Munir, the de facto general guide residing in London. He accused Egyptian security authorities of baiting the inmates. “We did not put them in jail and did not force them to join the Muslim Brotherhood,” he told Al Jazeera. “Those who want to disown the Brotherhood should do so,” saying they have been given the “Nasser’s License.”
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The GMBDW reported last week that Ibrahim Munir had participated at a Muslim Brotherhood conference in Istanbul, described by its organizers as “the largest intellectual conference the Muslim Brotherhood has seen in decades”.
Ibrahim Munir Mustafa (aka Ibrahim Munir, Ibrahim Mounir) was referred to in the past by the Egyptian Brotherhood as an Executive Bureau member of the Brotherhood’s International Organization while an Egyptian news report identifies him as the Secretary-General of the International Organization and one of its founders in 1982 as well as a spokesman for the Brotherhood in London. The latter Arabic language news report also provides some biographical detail on Mr. Munir who it says was sentenced to life imprisonment in Egypt in the 1950s in connection with the events following the attempted assassination of then Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Following his early release in 1975, the report says Mr. Munir traveled and worked in the Gulf States on behalf of the Brotherhood following which he applied for and was granted political asylum in the UK. Mr. Munir is also known to be the general supervisor of the London-based Muslim Brotherhood publication known as the ‘Risalat Al-Ikhwan’ (Muslim Brotherhood Message). Mr. Munir drew international attention in 2010 when he was one of five members charged by Egyptian prosecutors with money laundering and raising funds abroad.