Fr. Henri Boulad, SJ, the Egypt-based director of the Jesuit Cultural Centre, said the Muslim Brotherhood has built a fascist regime in Egypt far worse than the military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak that preceded it. He singled out the United States, France and Great Britain for supporting the Islamist group.
The Muslim Brotherhood is also one of the groups responsible for 100,000 deaths in his native Syria, Boulad told a meeting of the Middle East Discussion Group at a luncheon hosted by Senator Ann Cools.
“Syria is a disaster,” he said. “Egypt will soon be a disaster. How democratic countries can support such movements is disgusting.”
“As long as Islam is not reformed we are going to catastrophe,” he warned.
Bouland said he hoped liberal democracies would support a growing coalition mostly comprising Muslims who oppose the regime. The coalition includes journalist, thinkers, youth, and Christians, he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood has a systematic plan to harass Christians, including kidnap and rape of Christian women, so they will leave Egypt, he said. When opposed, the organization claims to be victims of discrimination. They cry “Islamophobia” and it “is politically incorrect to be an Islamophobe,” Bouland said.
“The United States, France and Great Britain are supporting this,” he said. “It’s crazy.”
He questioned how these countries can reconcile the promotion of human rights, democracy and rule of law with the practices of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region.
Bouland is concerned that Egypt has become extremely unstable as the government runs out of money. Income from tourism has dried up due in part to a dangerous lack of security, he said. “Security is a terrible problem.”
The Muslim Brotherhood succeeded in jumping over the original grassroots revolution that toppled Mubarak because it distributed food and money and supported women wearing the veil, he said. But today the majority of Egypt’s Muslims oppose the Muslim Brotherhood because they “don’t want this kind of Islam.”
“If you hear that I am stabbed in a few days, don’t be surprised,” the priest said. “It [would be] proof that what I am saying is true. Their only weapon is threats and menace.
“I am speaking up and saying ‘Don’t be intimidated by these people. Resist in the name of your principles.”