Cairo: The Muslim Brotherhood on Friday reacted with anger to an accusation made by US Secretary of State John Kerry that the Islamist group had “stolen” the Egyptian revolt that forced long-serving president Hosni Mubarak out of power more than two years ago.
“This statement twists facts and ignores realities recorded not only by the Brotherhood but also by their adversaries (about the anti-Mubarak revolt),” said the Brotherhood’s secretary-general Mahmoud Hussain.
“Many liberal Egyptians agreed that without the Brotherhood’s valour and resilience...the revolution would have failed,” he added in a statement posted on the group’s website.
In remarks apparently wooing Egypt’s military who deposed president Mohammad Mursi of the Brotherhood in July, Kerry accused the well-organised group of “having stolen” the revolt from young people, who had spearheaded the uprising that ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule.
“Those kids in Tahrir Square, they were not motivated by an religion or ideology,” Kerry said in Washington on Wednesday. “They were motivated by what they saw through this interconnected world, and they wanted a piece of the opportunity and a chance to get an education and have a future, and not have a corrupt government...and that’s what drove that revolution. And then it got stolen by the one single-most organised entity in the state, which was the Brotherhood.”
Earlier this month, Kerry visited Cairo, the first by such a senior US official since the ouster of Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. The trip was seen as aimed at mending fences with Egypt’s new rulers, especially after the country signalled interest in closer military cooperation with Russia. The Brotherhood’s opponents had earlier accused Washington of siding with the Islamist group.
Hussain said that the Brotherhood’s wins in post-Mubarak parliamentary and presidential polls came through “honest and fair elections”.
“It would have been better for the secretary of state of the US administration, which participated and backed the military coup and condoned massacres and oppressive measures being practised by the coup government in Egypt, to rectify its mistaken stances,” he added. “In our country, the US is the biggest supporter of dictatorship and freedom suppression.”
Hundreds of Islamists have been rounded up since Mursi’s overthrow over what the military-backed authorities allege their involvement in inciting violence.
