Muslim Brotherhood fails to expand across Europe

Terrorist attacks in Europe have dampened the extremists' reach

Yusuf Al Qaradawi is a leading Muslim Brotherhood figurehead based in Qatar. Reuters

Attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood to expand into central and eastern Europe have failed, a report says.

Terrorist attacks in Europe, including the 2015 Paris atrocity and the 2016 Brussels suicide bombings that killed dozens of people, have led to a lack of interest in the group.

The report by global think tank Globsec based in Bratislava, Slovakia, has analysed Muslim groups in the Czech Republic, Poland and Serbia.

They include the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim League in Poland and the General Union of Muslim Students in the Czech Republic, which have membership of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood’s European arm.

But despite attempts to develop political arms, the Brotherhood is “dormant” in these areas, the report concludes.

It identifies anti-Muslim sentiment linked to the refugee crisis as a reason behind its failure .

“The activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Serbia can be characterised as dormant and the majority of the organisations studied for this report are only 'shadows' of their former selves,” the report said.

“Formal connections to the Muslim Brotherhood-run organisations in Europe and even beyond were found in the early stages of the development of the organisations analysed for this report.

“However, currently these appear to be inoperative, although in the case of Serbia, there might be a possible Muslim Brotherhood tie facilitated via Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

The Brotherhood, which began in Egypt in 1928, is outlawed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE.

The report says Islamophobia has led to a “slowdown” in the activities of religious organisations.

“Following the terrorist attacks in Europe between 2015 and 2016, immigrants were labelled as a security threat by Czech, Polish and Serbian politicians, often depicting this heterogenous group with a broad brush as Muslims, regardless of their actual faith,” it said.

“Consequently, a significant number of Czech, Polish, and Serbian citizens adopted far-right political narratives that had penetrated the wider discourse.

"As such, xenophobic nationalism accompanied by Islamophobia flourished across the political discussions in these countries.

“In the past, even high-level officials in the Czech Republic publicly expressed negative attitudes towards Muslim immigrants.

"During the peak of the so-called refugee crisis and extremist terrorist activity in Europe, the prime minister rejected refugee quotas and demanded EU borders be closed to prevent Muslim refugees from entering Europe.”

The researchers gave examples of Czech politicians describing Muslim refugees as “criminals”, and Poland reneging on a pledge to take 7,000 after European terrorist attacks, claiming it could not guarantee ISIS fighters were not among them.

In March, Serbia ordered a military presence around three migrant camps in Sid after the outbreak of the pandemic, to stop migrants leaving over fears of trouble.

“In 2020, a snapshot of the organisations analysed for this report offers a contrast to their image 10 to 15 years ago,” the report concluded.

“Having to fight hard to shake off the connection to terrorism and illegal migration has exhausted and demoralised their leadership.

"Funding is still hard to come by, which severely limits the scale of their activities today.

“Deflecting never-ending suspicions of links to terrorists and internal vetting of their members has transformed the entities into very quiet groups, especially when compared to a few years back.

"This is a common trait for all the studied groups regardless of the country because their members mostly have foreign backgrounds.”

The results of the report are in contrast to issues in western Europe, where last week Britain faced renewed calls to address the growing threat of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In February politicians called for the group to be outlawed. Last year the US considered designating it a terrorist organisation.