Sneak Peek at the Muslim Brotherhood's New Political Party Program Posted by Shadi Hamid

In January, the Muslim Brotherhood announced that it would be forming a political party. The party program was supposed to come out a while back, but was delayed for a variety of reasons, among them that a chunk of the MB leadership was jailed by the regime. In any case, the wait is (almost) over. We learn via Abu Aardvark, that there is, apparently, a final version circulating on the web (part 1 and part 2). I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but you can get some of the highlights from Aardvark, among them:

The platform's most notable feature is an explicit, blanket affirmation of the equality of all citizens before the law and rejection of any discrimination between them regardless of religion, race, or ethnic origin. This, it seems to me, is the farthest they have ever officially gone towards meeting the fears of Coptic Christians. The platform calls for a civil state, which is the MB's formula for saying that it does not envision rule by the ulema or the direct application of sharia.

Comments

[Alejandro Beutel]

Shadi,

Please post up an English translation of the highlights of the Masri al-Youm's articles as soon as possible please! This would be extremely to many people who keep track of these issues, including myself. Thanks!

- Alejandro