The Muslim Brotherhood's official website accused those who vote against constitutional amendments during the referendum Saturday of receiving American funding and deceiving the public. The Brotherhood posted an article on its site Ikhwan Online titled "A suspicious campaign to encourage rejection of the amendments."
According to the article, a number of people and groups who have rejected the amendments paid for advertisements in a number of newspapers and websites in their campaign against the changes.
The Brotherhood article argues that those against the amendments based their judgment on non-expert opinion and deceived people by calling on individuals with no legal expertise to raise unfounded concerns about the amendments. The group also noted that one of the daily newspapers, whose name it did not mention, organized a seminar against the amendments. According to the group’s website, it was clear that "American funding was behind the organization of this seminar."
Ikhwan Online removed the article after a slew of comments rejecting accusations of disloyalty, deception, and the acceptance of foreign funding appeared. The article, which was only online for 1.5 hours, drew comments from 37 readers. The majority of the readers critiqued the Brotherhood for using the National Democratic Party’s tactics of accusing its opponents of disloyalty and lodging other unfair accusations against them.
"You are distorting the image of the MB…the person who wrote this story and the one who allowed him to publish it should be punished," wrote Haytham, one of the readers who commented on the article.
Another reader, Ahmed, added, "Your campaign is suspicious, because you are no different from the old regime, and because you are the only clear bloc now, and it is in your interest to say yes."
"Fear God people…why say yes…you have long dreamed about democracy, and once we were all blessed with it, you want to grab it," said Hisham Hassan, another reader.
Another, Hossam Mostafa, demanded the group provide "evidence" to substantiate their claims. Sobhi Ashour wondered: "Are we still accusing those who hold differing opinions of being part of suspicious campaigns? Do we still insist on the idea of American funding and KFC? Were those not the tactics used by Mubarak and his regime? Are Zakaria Abdul Aziz and Amr Hamzawy not considered legal and political experts? Let us respect differences of opinion."
The debate on the referendum has been heated, with many voters from the pro-democracy movement refusing to accept amendments to a constitution they say should be rewritten entirely.
The Brotherhood has endorsed the amendments that pave the way for early legislative elections, in which the Brotherhood is widely acknowledged as the party most ready to contest and win seats.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
