South Africa: Parliament Wishes All Muslims a Blessed Eid Al-Fitr
Ramadan is a sacred month characterised by fasting, prayer, charity, and reaching out to the poor and vulnerable. During this time, Muslims around the world abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours.
The Presiding Officers extend their well wishes to the Muslim community, hoping that today is spiritually fulfilling.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Republic of South Africa: The Parliament.
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Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Middle East Eye
Cair letter to Marco Rubio: We're being targeted for Palestine advocacy
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) has asked US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to clarify comments he made on a radio show earlier this week, where he appeared to threaten the domestic non-profit group with a terror designation for alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. "Your response, whether intentional or not, appeared to raise the possibility that the State Department is trying to find a way to weaponize federal terrorism laws against Cair and other American Muslim institutions based on a debunked conspiracy theory," the letter said, asking that Rubio's office reply directly. During an interview on the Sid & Friends In the Morning podcast on Tuesday, Rubio was asked: "Why wouldn't you guys designate the Muslim Brotherhood and Cair?" "Is that something you think we can count on maybe in the near future? Maybe not Cair just yet, but certainly the Muslim Brotherhood?" New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters In response, Rubio said: "Yeah, all of that is in the works." The letter, first seen by Middle East Eye, was sent to the secretary of state on Thursday evening local time in Washington. Cair insisted that its position on Israel's genocide in Gaza in particular is what has drawn the ire of conservative lawmakers and pro-Israel groups. "To these groups, whose top priority is protecting the Israeli government from criticism, any American Muslims who recognize that Palestinians are human beings worthy of freedom are a threat who must be smeared and silenced," the letter says. "The real reason anti-Muslim hate groups and pro-Israel lobby group obsessively target Cair... is because of our steadfast advocacy for Palestinian rights". Just last week, Republican Senator Tom Cotton sent his own letter calling on the Internal Revenue Service to revoke Cair's nonprofit status for its alleged "ties to terrorist activities" linked to "Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood". Cair defended its record, noting it has come under attack by extremist groups on all sides. "Cair has spent 30 years vocally speaking up against all forms of bigotry, including anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism, as well as all forms of unjust violence, including hate crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism," the letter said. Debunked Cair says that the group has spent years debunking arguments from both "anti-Muslim extremists and Muslim extremists who attempt to paint Islam as a religion of wanton violence". "In fact, Cair condemned terrorism so often that Isis once put a target on our national executive director," Cair said, using another term often used for the Islamic State militant (IS) group. That director, Nihad Awad, wrote an opinion article for Time magazine in 2014, strongly denouncing IS as far beyond mere "jihadists" who should instead be referred to as "anti-Islamic... criminals". "Despite these facts, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate groups have spent years falsely and nonsensically smearing Cair and other American Muslim institutions as foreign agents of Isis, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhood, all somehow at the same time," the letter to Rubio said. "None of this makes sense because none of it is true". Cair maintains that it is an independent American nonprofit organisation in full compliance with federal, state, and local laws and that it has "never been a member, chapter, offshoot, or affiliate of any foreign organization". And while it admitted it does not see eye to eye with the Trump administration's policies, Cair has urged Rubio to provide assurances that the State Department will not "misuse federal laws" to target their free speech based on conspiracy theories. "Disagreement is not the basis for public smears, much less legal action," the letter says.
Middle East Eye
3 days ago
- Middle East Eye
US terror designation of Muslim Brotherhood and Cair 'in the works'
In comments on a right-wing radio show earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is working on designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, as well as cracking down on a Muslim-American non-profit for its perceived ties to the Brotherhood. While calls to do so have come from several US lawmakers in the past, they have not borne fruit. But now, a cabinet-level official is making the assertion. "Why wouldn't you guys designate the Muslim Brotherhood and Cair?" asked the radio host, Sid Rosenberg, referencing the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil liberties organisation in the country. "I just - I look at these organisations. I have a mayor's race here in New York City with this psycho, this lunatic Mamdani," he added, referencing the current Democratic candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who also happens to be Muslim. "Both of these groups, you know, are behind him, especially the Muslim Brotherhood," Rosenberg said of Cair's indirect financial support for the progressive candidate. "Is that something you think we can count on maybe in the near future? Maybe not Cair just yet, but certainly the Muslim Brotherhood?" New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters " Yeah, all of that is in the works," Rubio responded. "Obviously, there are different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, so you'd have to designate each one of them... these things are going to be challenged in court, right?" " We are constantly reviewing for groups to designate for what they are: supporters of terrorists, maybe terrorists themselves, whatever it may be. We haven't done this in a long time, so it's - we've got a lot of catch-up to do. And you've mentioned a couple names, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, that are of grave concern," he said. Last month, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives called the "Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025", which called on the Trump administration to do just that. And a letter was sent just last week by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, calling on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Cair's nonprofit status for its alleged "ties to terrorist activities" linked to "Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood". US senator asks tax authority to strip Muslim civil rights organisation of nonprofit status Read More » Middle East Eye reached out to Cair for a response on Rubio's comments, and was referred to a statement released by the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (Mpac) instead, which condemned the move to "smear" a domestic group "or treat political disagreement as grounds for terrorism designation". Mpac's vice president of policy and programming, Haris Tarin, is a former senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security, and was at the agency under three different presidents since the Obama administration. "For the Secretary of State to comment on Cair... that's extremely problematic and concerning to us. He does not have the right to say that. He does not have the authority. He does not have the mandate," Tarin told MEE. "The conversation around Cair [now]... that was never in previous administrations, including Biden, Trump 1.0, Obama, and Bush," he added. "There was never conversations about banning Cair. There was conversations about engaging Cair and whether the federal government thought it was a politically right or politically savvy thing for them to engage Cair". The public, Tarin said, should be "extremely alarmed when it comes to designating a domestic institution" precisely because Americans fund it and it is not a foreign institution. What could happen - should the Trump administration compile clear evidence for such a case - is that it would have to file charges through the Department of Justice, he explained. What is The Muslim Brotherhood? The Muslim Brotherhood is most commonly known in the Arab world as a political party founded on Islamic principles and laws, whose support skyrocketed in the wake of the 2011 Arab protests aimed at overthrowing autocratic rulers. It was established in the late 1920s in Egypt and gained popularity as the mid-century ushered in secular governments that saw modernisation and westernisation interchangeably. In 2012, after the toppling of Egypt's ruler of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, an internationally-monitored election in Egypt saw the victory of its first Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi. Within a year, he was toppled by the military, imprisoned, and died in prison in 2019. The Muslim Brotherhood is now banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, and most recently in Jordan. 'Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments have created a narrative in the US where democracy is good, except when religious Muslims win to govern their own countries' - Raed Jarrar, Dawn "Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments have created a narrative in the US where democracy is good, except when religious Muslims win to govern their own countries," Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director for Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), told MEE. "We saw that narrative come out of Gaza when Hamas won the elections. We saw that narrative come out of Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood won the elections. We saw that narrative in Tunisia, in Libya, in Jordan, and many other countries where religious Muslims won democratic elections," he said. Jarrar added that there is no singular Brotherhood entity or "headquarters" because it's an ideology and a movement that springs up independently across each of the countries in the Middle East and North Africa - so a US designation would have to be detailed and country-specific to hold up in court, just as Rubio indicated. For lawmakers pushing for a terror designation, the Muslim Brotherhood "poses a direct threat to US national security through radical jihadist attempts to eliminate and destroy America and its allies", Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, who sponsored the House bill, said in a press release. MEE put the question to George Washington University professor Nathan Brown, who is an expert on Middle East politics and sits on the board of trustees at the American University in Cairo. In what ways is the Muslim Brotherhood a threat to US national security? " None at all," he said. Anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian sentiment When Senator Cotton wrote to the IRS, he alleged that Cair was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and that the group participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. Cair firmly rejected the claims and said they're tied to anti-Muslim bigotry. "You have some very heated anti-Muslim forces [in the State Department] that are a little bit more eager to try to find and make those connections, but they're going to run into the same problem: you can't. There's no smoking gun anywhere, because there's no real, tangible connection," Shahed Amanullah, a former State Department senior staffer under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, told MEE. What's so scary about the Muslim Brotherhood? Read More » The State Department is the agency that is responsible for any terrorist designations, as well as visa revocations. "In the past, I would say that people at the State Department were sophisticated and smart enough to understand the nuances of those affiliated movements overseas, and that it wasn't some kind of command and control structure," Amanullah said of the Muslim Brotherhood. "Those people have been hollowed out from the State Department," he said. Unlike past attempts at designating the Brotherhood and going after Cair, this time in particular, it's also taking place with the backdrop of the genocide in Gaza, Tarin told MEE. "Anything that has to do with American-Muslim institutions... it has to do with their support for pro-Palestinian organisations," he said. The Trump administration has made it a priority to go after international students and some of the most prestigious universities in the country for pro-Palestine protests and activism. Students have been jailed in immigration detention centres, deported, and the institutions they attended were effectively sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by the government. Jewish Voice for Peace, which has joined pro-Palestine demonstrations, has previously noted that the administration's playbook is taken from the Heritage Foundation's 'Project Esther' report, "which is a blueprint for using the federal government and private institutions to dismantle the Palestine solidarity movement and broader US civil society, under the guise of 'fighting antisemitism'". "I think pro-Israel groups feel that American Muslim institutions that support the pro-Palestinian movement are a threat to their existence here in the US, and their dominance of US foreign policy," Tarin told MEE.
Zawya
3 days ago
- Zawya
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Expresses Solidarity with Cabo Verde and Offers Condolences over Flood Victims
The United Arab Emirates has expressed its sincere condolences and solidarity with the Republic of Cabo Verde over the victims of the floods on the islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão, which resulted in a number of deaths and missing persons. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) expressed its sincere condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims, as well as to the government and people of Cabo Verde over this tragedy. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Arab Emirates, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
