British Conservative MP Joins Former Morsi Administration Officials At Global Muslim Brotherhood Conference on Egypt

A 23 June 2021 webi­nar held by the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion and titled “Sham Tri­als and Mass Exe­cu­tions in Egypt — A Mock­ery of Jus­tice” brought togeth­er a British Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty MP and sev­er­al for­mer Egypt­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials who served under the late Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Morsi’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood admin­is­tra­tion. Accord­ing to a Face­book post, the event was addressed by Crispin Blunt MP, for­mer Vice-Chair of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Mid­dle East Coun­cil and for­mer Chair of the House of Com­mons For­eign Affairs Select Com­mit­tee. On the day of the con­fer­ence, Blunt pub­lished a let­ter addressed to the British Min­is­ter of State for the Mid­dle East and Africa, crit­i­ciz­ing what he called Britain’s “lam­en­ta­ble” reac­tion to mass tri­als and exe­cu­tions of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Egypt. In the let­ter, Crispin said that in 2013, he had been the only Euro­pean politi­cian to vis­it the Mus­lim Brotherhood’s sit-in protest camp in Cairo’s Rabia Square, crit­i­ciz­ing the lack of polit­i­cal action against alleged human rights abus­es com­mit­ted by Egypt­ian secu­ri­ty forces.

The online event, mod­er­at­ed by Anas Altikri­ti, a leader of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) in the Unit­ed King­dom and CEO of the Cor­do­ba Foun­da­tion, also fea­tured con­tri­bu­tions by sev­er­al oth­er indi­vid­u­als, all of whom have ties to the GMB:

• Sarah Leah Whit­son, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of DAWN, a US think-tank whose board of direc­tors includes numer­ous indi­vid­u­als tied to the GMB.

• Amr Dar­rag, a lead­ing Egypt­ian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood fig­ure and for­mer Egypt­ian Plan­ning Min­is­ter in the Mor­si administration.

• Yehia Hamed, for­mer Egypt­ian Invest­ment Min­is­ter in the Mor­si admin­is­tra­tion and co-founder of the For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee of Pres­i­dent Morsi’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Party.

• Maha Azzam, Head of the Egypt­ian Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Coun­cil, a Turkey-based Egypt­ian oppo­si­tion group close­ly affil­i­at­ed with the Mus­lim Brotherhood.

In Octo­ber 2016, the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch (GMBDW) report­ed that Crispin Blunt, then chair­man of the For­eign Affairs Select Com­mit­tee, had defend­ed his deci­sion to share a stage with the leader of a pro-Hamas orga­ni­za­tion who also sup­ports the leader of the Israeli Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, an indi­vid­ual con­vict­ed in Israel for invok­ing a blood libel against Euro­pean Jews.

Ear­li­er this week, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that a vir­tu­al con­fer­ence orga­nized by Jamaat-e-Isla­mi Pak­istan had brought togeth­er Anas Al-Tikri­ti, for­mer high-lev­el politi­cians, a West­ern aca­d­e­m­ic, and the Chief Advi­sor to the Turk­ish President.