Jordan announced Wednesday that it was denounced plans to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, a cross-border Islamic movement, and to destabilize the kingdom, as well as to ban the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, arms production and stockpiling, as well as to destabilize the kingdom.
The move comes after authorities said they arrested 16 people, including members of the Brotherhood, on suspicion of sabotage.
“It has been decided that all activities of the so-called Muslim Brotherhood will be banned and that any activity (which is carried out by it) will consider violations of the provisions of the law,” Home Minister Mazen Al Faraya told reporters.
“It has also been decided that the group will close the office or head office, even if they are working with other parties,” he added, according to France24.
Their office was also attacked, and documents were seized. This is a lawsuit that could mark the beginning of a broader crackdown on the parties disbanding it, security sources told Reuters.
The Muslim Brotherhood continues to operate in Jordan despite the ruling that the country’s Supreme Court will dissolve it in 2020, and authorities have turned their eyes on it.
The Brotherhood’s political wing, the Islamic Action Front, is Jordan’s main opposition party and the largest party in the parliament, winning 31 of the 138 seats in the September election.
Falaya said that Jordan “confiscates group assets in accordance with relevant judicial rulings, prohibits the promotion of group ideas under penalties of legal accountability, and considers its membership as a prohibitive law.”
The capital city of Amman is home to several Muslim Brotherhood offices. Groups often state and organize rallies in solidarity with the Palestinians, particularly since the start of the Gaza War in October 2023.
Falaya said collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood was prohibited and published content produced by “all aspects and weapons.”
It was not immediately clear whether the ban was applied to the Islamic Front of Action.
During a session in Parliament earlier this week, some lawmakers ban Brotherhood activities and called for MPs to halt the Islamic Front of Action.
Jordan’s intelligence agency on April 15 announced the arrests of 16 people on charges of “terrorism,” and denounced them, among other things, the manufacture and owner of weapons, such as rockets.
The Muslim Brotherhood denied its recognition of any conspiracy and dismissed it as an act of an individual in favour of Palestinian “resistance.”
The group said it always supports “Jordanian security and stability.”
Falaya accused group members of “working in the shadows and engaged in activities that could undermine stability and security.”
He added that authorities have discovered “explosives and weapons transported between Jordanian cities and stored in residential areas,” as well as “training and recruitment work” related to the secret missile manufacturing facility and groups.
“The country is unacceptable,” the minister said.
Amman has tolerated the group for decades, but since 2014 authorities have argued that their licenses have not been renewed under the 2014 law, and have deemed them illegal.
The Brotherhood claims it was already licensed under previous laws in the 1940s and 1950s.
It continued to operate, but relations with the state worsened after the government approved the rupture group, the Muslim Brotherhood Association in 2015.
The Brotherhood, banned in several other Arab countries, has received grassroots support in Jordan for decades.