The Jordanian government have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest opposition motion within the kingdom, in a big new crackdown. On Wednesday April 23, safety forces raided Brotherhood workplaces, confiscating property and assets, and outlawed all the crew’s actions.
One week previous, 16 Brotherhood participants have been arrested for allegedly plotting assaults on objectives inside of Jordan the use of rockets and drones. The Brotherhood, whose participants Jordanian inner minister Mazen al-Faraya says “operate in the shadows and engage in activities that could undermine stability and security”, has denied any hyperlinks to the assault plots.
The ban at the Brotherhood, an Islamist motion that wishes a better function for faith in public existence, comes at a time when the Jordanian executive is going through intense power over the conflict in Gaza.
The Brotherhood organised months of demonstrations in cohesion with Palestinians. It has additionally been vocal in its improve for the Palestinian armed crew Hamas, and has demanded the cancellation of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel.
On the identical time, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has come underneath heavy power from the Donald Trump management in america to resettle Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip and West Financial institution. If he have been to agree, the transfer would chance being noticed as a betrayal of the Palestinian motive.
Jordanian safety forces encompass an illustration organised through the Muslim Brotherhood in Amman, Jordan.
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The Jordanian government have had an uneasy dating with the Brotherhood for the reason that overdue Nineteen Eighties, when the dominion’s political device unfolded. They’ve appeared to curb its affect.
In 2016, the Brotherhood’s headquarters within the capital, Amman, was once closed and its property have been transferred to a brand new organisation known as the Affiliation of the Society of the Muslim Brotherhood, referred to as the “permitted” Muslim Brotherhood. As ideological splits emerged within the motion, the government have attempted to milk interior divisions.
The most recent crackdown represents a hanging repressive flip. It marks a shift clear of containing the motion to with the exception of it from public existence.
But the Brotherhood stays common. In September 2024, the Islamic Motion Entrance, the political birthday celebration affiliated with the motion, stunned observers through profitable parliamentary elections. It took 31 seats within the 138-seat parliament, securing victory in constituencies around the nation in its absolute best election efficiency in additional than 3 many years.
Its good fortune was once in large part all the way down to the Brotherhood’s demonstrations in improve of Palestinians. Those demonstrations resonated in Jordan, the place round part the inhabitants is of Palestinian starting place. The birthday celebration additionally benefited from adjustments within the electoral regulations previous to the election, which gave extra weight to political events and not more to unbiased applicants.
However underneath Jordan’s authoritarian device, the king holds many of the energy, particularly in interior safety and overseas affairs. The palace tightly controls political existence. So the Islamic Motion Entrance was once no longer invited to enroll in the brand new executive, which is made up of pro-monarchy events.
The important thing query now could be whether or not the government may even ban the Islamic Motion Entrance, regardless of its electoral beneficial properties.
Struggle with the crown
Even earlier than the most recent crackdown, Islamists in Jordan feared a war of words with the government. Many suspected the palace sought after to near the Brotherhood motion and depart a weakened birthday celebration that could be extra simply contained.
All over a talk over with to Jordan in a while after the elections in September, one senior Islamic Motion Entrance determine instructed me: “They [the monarchy] just want a party in a superficial form. A party without any presence.”
Despite the fact that the Brotherhood were underneath power, it was once nonetheless in a position to perform maximum of its actions. Senior birthday celebration participants even took section in a royal committee on “political modernisation” in 2021, which drew up reforms to modify the electoral regulations to beef up political events.
But many within the Brotherhood feared a war of words with the palace was once coming. One senior Brotherhood determine instructed me in October 2024: “The Brotherhood is a vast, widespread organisation with a social and a political presence. A clash between the state and the Brotherhood would have negative effects on society and on the legitimacy of the political system.”
King Abdullah II of Jordan holds substantial political energy and affect.
Gonzalo Fuentes / Pool / EPA
Jordan’s Brotherhood isn’t on my own in going through a disaster. Different Islamist organisations around the area are experiencing political setbacks, greater than a decade after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings appeared to be offering them new alternatives.
In Tunisia, the place a democratic transition has been sharply reversed since 2021, dozens of leaders from the Islamist Ennahda birthday celebration had been jailed.
The arrests have been a part of a wide wave of repression towards regime critics, together with politicians, judges, attorneys and human rights activists. Ennahda, which spent a decade in executive between 2011 and 2021, has suffered interior splits.
In Morocco, the Justice and Building birthday celebration, an Islamist birthday celebration which additionally spent a decade in executive from 2011, suffered a heavy defeat in the newest elections in 2021.
The birthday celebration’s losses have been partially a results of restrictions on the time of the vote. Those integrated new laws about how seats have been apportioned and the truth that some birthday celebration applicants have been disqualified from operating.
However the losses have been additionally on account of interior disputes after High Minister Saadeddine Othmani signed a normalisation settlement with Israel in 2020 to steer clear of a war of words with the monarchy, which controls overseas affairs.
In Kuwait, parliament was once suspended in 2024 for the reason that ruling emir, Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Sabah, complained about political gridlock. This saved all opposition events, together with Islamists, out of the political procedure. And in Algeria, Islamist events had been co-opted or marginalised for the reason that sour civil conflict of the Nineties.
Opinion polls display that many of us within the Heart East wish to see an important function for faith in public existence. However rulers around the area are an increasing number of cautious of Islamist events, which need no longer most effective to introduce a extra conservative social schedule however to problem undemocratic regimes.
