EXCLUSIVE: Daughter of Dutch Muslim Brotherhood Leader Runs for Green Party in Dutch Parliamentary Elections

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) has dis­cov­ered that a can­di­date for the March 2021 Dutch par­lia­men­tary elec­tions is like­ly the daugh­ter of one of the most impor­tant lead­ers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the Nether­lands. Dutch blog­ger and for­mer jour­nal­ist Carel Bren­del recent­ly report­ed that Kau­thar Bouchal­likht, the Vice-Chair­man of the Fed­er­a­tion of Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO), was award­ed a high place in the upcom­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions on behalf of the Groen­Links, a left-wing polit­i­cal par­ty in the Nether­lands asso­ci­at­ed with the Euro­pean Green Par­ty. Accord­ing to his blog post:

Novem­ber 13, 2020 Groen­Links has nom­i­nat­ed Kau­thar Bouchal­likht for place 9 in the upcom­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. The Groen­Links biog­ra­phy prais­es her tal­ent as orga­niz­er of a nation­al stu­dent strike, her role as cam­paign­er for the Cli­mate March, and as coor­di­na­tor of the Cli­mate Strike. Bouchal­likht also works as a pub­li­cist (OneWorld, NieuwWij, Wij Bli­jven Hier! And De Cor­re­spon­dent). She is chair of the Groene Mus­lims foun­da­tion, which pro­motes the envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness of Mus­lim con­sumers and encour­ages entre­pre­neurs to con­sume sus­tain­ably and cor­po­rate social responsibility.

(Trans­lat­ed from Dutch with Google Translate)

Read the rest here.

As Bren­del notes, Bouchallikht’s posi­tion with FEMYSO is omit­ted from her can­di­date biog­ra­phy. FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, for­mer­ly known as the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), known to rep­re­sent the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. One of the impor­tant lead­ers of FEMYSO over the years has been Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at, and in recent times, its lead­er­ship has been drawn from the fam­i­ly of impor­tant Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers. Almost all of the FEMYSO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are also tied to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al level.

The GIOR has dis­cov­ered that in addi­tion to her lead­er­ship posi­tion in FEMYSO, Kau­thar Bouchal­likht is like­ly the daugh­ter of Mostapha Bouchal­likht, one of the most impor­tant lead­ers of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the Nether­lands. The Dutch trade reg­is­ter indi­cates that her Ams­ter­dam address is the same address used to reg­is­ter a Dutch foun­da­tion where Mostapha Bouchal­likht serves as Chair­man [See NOTE below]. Accord­ing to a report to the Dutch gov­ern­ment by a for­mer Dutch intel­li­gence analyst:

Unlike in neigh­bor­ing coun­tries such as Ger­many, France and the Unit­ed King­dom, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood does not have a long his­to­ry in the Nether­lands. It was not until 1996 that a num­ber of men came togeth­er and joint­ly found­ed the LIGA OF THE ISLAMIC COMMUNITY (LIGN). Founders include Ibrahim AKKARI, Kamis GACHA and Mostapha BOUCHALLIKHT who would be the direc­tor of ISLAMIC RELIEF NETHERLANDS for many years. The LIGN was to serve as an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion for the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood ide­ol­o­gy in the Netherlands.

(Trans­lat­ed from Dutch with Google Translate)

Read the rest here.

It should also be not­ed that the now-defunct LIGN is, in turn, a found­ing mem­ber of the FIOE, FEMYSO’s par­ent orga­ni­za­tion. Based on their respec­tive ages, the most like­ly con­clu­sion is that Kau­thar Bouchal­likht is the daugh­ter of Mostapha Bouchal­likht, a rela­tion­ship con­firmed by oth­er sources in the Nether­lands. She, there­fore, joins a long list of oth­er chil­dren of Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood lead­ers who became offi­cers of FEMYSO, including:

• Intis­sar Khe­ri­gi (daugh­ter of Tunisian Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Rachid Ghanouchi)

• Youssef Him­mat (believed to be the son of Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ghaleb Ali Himmat)

• Hajar Al Kad­do (daugh­ter of Irish Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Nooh Al Kaddo)

• Fati­ma Hawala (daugh­ter of Irish Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Hus­sein Hawala)

Whether out of igno­rance or by design, Groen­Links has issued a state­ment deny­ing Kau­thar Bouchallikht’s links to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood by deny­ing that FEMYSO is the youth orga­ni­za­tion of the Broth­er­hood and claim­ing that the asso­ci­a­tion comes from “right-wing blog­gers and twitterers”:

In recent days, Groen­Links can­di­date MP Kau­thar Bouchal­likht has been asso­ci­at­ed with the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood by right-wing blog­gers and twit­ter­ers because, in addi­tion to her oth­er work as a cli­mate activist, she is also vice-chair of the Fed­er­a­tion of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions until Decem­ber 1 (FEMYSO). Her board posi­tion at FEMYSO was known to the can­di­date com­mit­tee of Groen­Links and is also sim­ply stat­ed on her CV and web­site. This is not the youth orga­ni­za­tion of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as claimed, but an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion of all kinds of dif­fer­ent nation­al stu­dent / youth Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions in Europe, which receives a sub­sidy from the EU and is a dis­cus­sion part­ner of the Euro­pean Commission.

For the record, nei­ther GIOR nor the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch, the GIOR pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion, is “rightwing.” The GIOR Senior Edi­tor was described as fol­lows by a for­mer BBC reporter, John Ware:

Just as the US Jus­tice Depart­ment and FBI take Merley’s work seri­ous­ly, we should too. He is no ide­o­logue and is as trou­bled by right-wing groups demon­is­ing ordi­nary Mus­lims today as he is by the Broth­er­hood itself.

Recent GIOR report­ing on FEMYSO has included:

• In Octo­ber, the GIOR report­ed that FEMYSO’s Pres­i­dent par­tic­i­pat­ed in a vir­tu­al meet­ing attend­ed by many key orga­ni­za­tions of the Glob­al Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• In Octo­ber, the GIOR report­ed on FEMYSO’s ties to the Col­lec­tive Against Islam­o­pho­bia in France (CCIF), which was iden­ti­fied as an Islamist influ­ence operation.

• In Octo­ber, the GIOR report­ed that FEMYSO was among a group of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions with links to the Euro­pean Mus­lim Broth­er­hood call­ing for the adop­tion of anti-racist leg­is­la­tion mit­i­gat­ing the impact of Covid-19 on Mus­lim communities.

• In Novem­ber, the GIOR report­ed that FEMYSO host­ed an anti-Islam­o­pho­bia event with sev­er­al top EU officials.

[NOTE: The address in ques­tion appears to be a res­i­den­tial address, and there­fore we have cho­sen not to reveal the exact name of the foundation.]