RECOMMENDED READING: “TV show On Muslim Brotherhood Stirs Outrage”

Middle Eastern media is reporting on a controversial television serial depicting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that is aring on Egyptian TV during Ramadan. According to a report in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masy Al-Youm:

The suspect recites Quranic verses as he walks down a long corridor, held by the arms by two plainclothes police who are marching him to the state security prosecutor’s office. “I am willing to listen to the whole Quranic chapter, especially as you have a nice voice, but we should start the interrogation,” says the softly-spoken prosecutor who is about to question the suspect, a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood accused of instigating violence on a university campus. “And I am ready,” replies the prisoner in a friendly tone. This cordial exchange is not real, but fictional. It is one of the most problematic scenes of Al-Gama’a, or “The Group,” a television serial that seeks to portray “the truth” about the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist group. As soon as the holy month of Ramadan kicked in last week, the most anticipated show started to roll on state-owned television. With his incendiary narrative, prolific screenwriter Waheed Hamed has provoked a stir among both the Muslim Brotherhood’s sympathizers and critics who contend that the author is paying lip service to Egypt’s most notorious state security apparatus.

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The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood can be considered to be the “mother” organization of what is referred to in these pages as the Global Muslim Brotherhood which developed as Muslim Brothers fleeing Egypt settled in Europe and the United States, as well as other places, throughout the years. The global network has since eclipsed the Egyptian organization as evidenced by global Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi’s decision to turn down the leadership of the Egyptian organization when it was offered to him in 2004.