Saudi action puts Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait on spot
Saudi Arabia’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization has put pressure on Brotherhood organizations in the rest of the Gulf.
On March 11, a little-noticed lawsuit will resume in the Kuwaiti courts to disband the Muslim Brotherhood’s local charity arm, the Social Reform Society. Al Eslah, as it is known, is accused of mixing aid with politics — at home as well as in projects abroad, such as in Egypt. The case itself is unlikely to achieve its objective and will likely linger in the courts for months. But it is a telling example of the increasingly tense debate in Gulf states over the Muslim Brotherhood’s place in politics.
After three years of escalating animosity, Saudi Arabia made its own view clear over the weekend, adding the Muslim Brotherhood to its official list of terrorist organizations and laying out strict prohibitions against participation and support. The moves followed a decision, together with the UAE and Bahrain, to withdraw ambassadors from Qatar March 6 over anger at Doha’s support for political Islam.
But Riyadh’s new rules don’t just mark the end of the organization’s legal presence in the kingdom. They also raise questions about the future of the Brotherhood in smaller Gulf states such as Kuwait and Bahrain, where offshoots operate openly as registered political and social groups.
The Saudi moves put “pressure on other states that have Muslim Brotherhood adherents, asking them to decree that the group is a terrorist organization,” said Theodore Karasik in an interview with Al-Monitor. Karasik is the director of research at the INEGMA think tank in Dubai. “Kuwait, Jordan, Syria — even in the UK and France you have adherents to this strain of thought. … There may be a real push by the southern Gulf states to create a Muslim Brotherhood-free security environment.”
