By Mohamed Sabry
CAIRO (AA) – Egyptian authorities have frozen the assets of 1,370 members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group since late 2013, according to an Egyptian official.
Ezzat Khamis, the head of a government-appointed committee tasked with running the Brotherhood’s confiscated assets, said Sunday that 1,125 Brotherhood-linked NGOs had also been seized since September of 2013.
“A total of 105 [Brotherhood-run] schools and 43 [Brotherhood-run] hospitals have also been seized by the committee,” he added.
In September of 2013, an Egyptian court banned the activities of the decades-old Muslim Brotherhood, the group of which ousted and imprisoned President Mohamed Morsi was a leading member.
The court also ordered the group’s dissolution and the confiscation of its offices and funds.
Khamis went on to accuse the Brotherhood of leaking classified documents from the presidency to the Brotherhood’s guidance office — the group’s highest decision-making body — during Morsi’s single year in office.
“Documents seized from the guidance office show that the Brotherhood’s leader and guidance office were ruling the country,” he said.
In mid-2013, the Egyptian military ousted and imprisoned Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, following protests against his administration.
Since Morsi’s ouster, the Egyptian authorities have launched a relentless crackdown on the Brotherhood, killing hundreds and arresting tens of thousands.
In late 2013, the government designated the Brotherhood a “terrorist organization”, accusing it of carrying out attacks against Egyptian security forces.
The Brotherhood, for its part, insists it is committed to peaceful activism with a view to reversing what it describes as the “military coup” against Egypt’s first democratically-elected president.