After the deportation of an Egyptian political asylum seeker and member of the Muslim Brotherhood from Turkey last month, Malaysian authorities decided to deport four Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members on Wednesday.
The Malaysian government found that the four Egyptians they were sentenced to life imprisonment in serious cases in their country, expert on fundamentalist movements in Egypt Amr Abdel Moneim told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Muslim Brotherhood activists launched campaigns on social media to exert pressure on Malaysian authorities to stop the deportation process of the Egyptians, who have been residing in Malaysia for four years now.
The defendants were identified as Abdullah Mohamed Hashim and Abdul Rahman Abdul Aziz, who are students in the International Islamic University, and Mohamed Fathi Eid and Azmi Mohamed, who were teachers.
Mohammed Abdel Hafiz, who has been sentenced to death in Egypt on charges of targeting former Egyptian Attorney General Hisham Barakat, was forced onto a plane to Cairo on January 18 after he landed at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.
After his deportation, a state of terror prevailed among Muslim Brotherhood members, fearing they face Abdel Hafiz’s fate.
Muslim Brotherhood members in Turkey also broadcast videos on social media, in which they launched an attack on the organization, claiming that its leaders had “abandoned” them in Turkey.
“Reasons behind deporting four young Brotherhood members from Malaysia were their attempt to incite against Egypt and recent death sentences its courts have issued,” said Abdel Moneim.
They launched a campaign against Egypt in the Malaysian parliament and government, he added, noting that they failed to notice the agreement between Egypt and Malaysia to extradite those convicted of violence and sentenced to prison terms.
Egyptian interior ministry has earlier executed nine prisoners, who were convicted over the 2015 killing of Egypt’s former public prosecutor.
This has pushed leaders of the organization fleeing abroad to question the verdicts of the judiciary.
