Abu Dhabi’s attach with the Muslim Brotherhood

In March 2011, buoyed by the revolutions sweeping the sphere, a crew of 132 Emirati intellectuals and activists petitioned President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan to institute reforms. They had been calling for the United Arab Emirates’ National Council be democratically elected and granted stout legislative powers.

Days later, the authorities they petitioned deployed 1000’s of cops to Bahrain, where they joined a contingent of Saudi troops to slay an rebel on the island kingdom. It became as soon as the main of quite quite a bit of Saudi-Emirati measures to rein in the « advances » of the Arab Spring and salvage rid of excessive voices that puzzled their rule.

By most accounts, the Emiratis who signed the petition represented a sinful piece of society – clinical doctors, attorneys, judges, and lecturers – and integrated members of Al Islah (Reform), a social motion ideologically linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (the Brotherhood).

The crackdown became as soon as excessive, particularly on Al Islah.

Arrests started in April and quickly expanded to encompass most Emiratis who signed the petition; they had been accused of promoting « terrorist » ideology and plotting to overthrow the authorities.

By the slay of 2011, six Emiratis had had their citizenship revoked and dozens more had been handed hefty jail sentences.

In accordance to US diplomatic cables launched by WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011, UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (also called MBZ) had a prolonged-held antipathy towards the Brotherhood, and in total spoke with US officials about his efforts to accommodate alleged members inside of Emirati society.

Although Al Islah denied having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, they had been viewed with suspicion by MBZ and his brothers, who occasionally ever missed an opportunity to discuss about their supposed « influence ».

« The Emirati authorities’s crackdown on Islah, in my judge about, became as soon as no longer in accordance to proper level of threat or even of reputation of that motion, but fairly on the authorities’s (and particularly Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed’s) calculation that political Islam of any kind is basically threatening to authorities steadiness and safety, » Courtney Freer, creator of Rentier Islamism: The Impact of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies, educated Al Jazeera.

« In consequence, on the present time, Islamist movements have largely moved underground, with the authorities fervent to promote so-called sensible Islam in its field, » she added.

The crackdown had a chilling operate on civil society in the UAE, and became as soon as a prelude to more dramatic measures to position Muslim Brotherhood-linked political movements, alongside with toughen for a counter-revolution in the Arab world’s most populous nation, Egypt.

The blockade of Qatar, which is set to enter its 2nd yr, appears to be motivated in piece by Abu Dhabi’s prolonged-held antipathy towards members, institutions, and governments that appear supportive of « political Islam », which the UAE authorities has framed as « extremism ».

Revolution 2.zero

In the elections that adopted the Arab Spring, quite quite a bit of Muslim Brotherhood-linked parties succeeded (to varying levels) on the pollfield, alongside with Ennahda in Tunisia, the Freedom and Justice Birthday celebration in Egypt, the Justice & Pattern Birthday celebration in Morocco, Islamic Circulation Front in Jordan, and the Islamic Constitutional Circulation in Kuwait.

When a militia coup became as soon as staged in 2013 to overthrow Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the UAE and Saudi Arabia supported it, opting for their model of sturdy-man « steadiness » over instant democratic swap.

As a long way help as 2011, the UAE and Qatar have adopted insurance policies « which would be in some conditions near-diametric opposites, particularly as they related to the unfolding political transitions in North Africa, » Kristian Ulrichsen, be taught fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Coverage and creator of The United Arab Emirates: Energy, Politics, and Coverage-Making, educated Al Jazeera.

« Evidently the visceral reaction to Qatari Arab Spring insurance policies in Abu Dhabi has been the sphere off for both the 2014 iteration of the spat and the 2017 model, and that MBZ has worked closely with MBS [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] in Riyadh to strive to present a united front no longer top possible on the Qatar insist but as well on Yemen as neatly, » he added.

Politicisation of ‘terrorism’

There had been signs of a fracture rising between Abu Dhabi and Doha, years before the Arab Spring.

Diplomatic cables sent from the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi between 2004 and 2010 insist dozens of conferences between MBZ and US officials, where they talked about politically level-headed topics he never talked about in public.

US officials famed how MBZ generically makes exhaust of the term « Muslim Brotherhood » for all « extremists », starting from armed groups love al-Qaeda, to populist movements that participate in democratic elections all around the sphere.

By 2014 though, his enormous definition of « extremists » became yet again widely authorized, after Saudi Arabia designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.

The UAE adopted swimsuit, and passed legislation that opened the methodology to terrorism prosecution to those expressing composed opposition to the authorities.

Human Rights Maintain about condemned the authorities for passing this form of « violent and rude law » on the time, while claiming to be a « key ally in the combat towards violent extremism ».

More shockwaves had been felt that yr when the UAE launched its fear checklist, lumping the Islamic Teach of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also called ISIS) crew and al-Qaeda with nonviolent organisations essentially based completely mostly in the US and Europe.

On the time, International Minister Abdullah bin Zayed educated US media that Abu Dhabi’s « threshold for extremists became as soon as fairly low », earning him reward from aesthetic-fly pundits for going above-and-beyond the US checklist of International Terrorist Organizations.

For the reason that foundation of the Gulf Disaster one yr previously, additions to the checklist have also been rejected by the UN, and even Donald Trump’s Teach Division.