Dubai’s police chief, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan, launched a sharp attack on the Muslim Brotherhood, in a new development of a crisis that erupted on Friday after Khalfan said he intended to arrest a former Muslim Brotherhood icon.
A spokesperson for the Brotherhood, Mahmoud Ghazlan, criticized the Dubai Police Department’s intention to request that Interpol arrest the head of the International Union for Muslim Scholars and former Brotherhood member Yusuf al-Qaradawi, reported the state-run daily Al-Ahram.
Ghazlan said that the UAE “wouldn’t dare” make such a request, after which he threatened to mobilize Islamic public opinion against it. Qaradawi had previously criticized UAE authorities for deporting Syrians who protested inside the country against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in violation of UAE laws.
In an interview with Algerian Newspaper Echuroukonline, Khalfan said the reason behind Ghazlan’s attack on him was a statement he made two months ago at a conference in Bahrain when he warned of the danger of the Brotherhood for the Gulf States’ security.
“It is strange that for decades they have accused apparatuses, states and presidents of all kinds of corruption and suppression of freedom of opinion, and when I say this organization is a threat to Gulf security they get furious,” he said. “Why do you want to shut people up, and why don’t you accept differences in opinion?”
“During a visit to Iran, we’ve seen Ghazlan say that Khomeini is his idol,” he added. “I do not ever expect the Brotherhood to unite its forces.”
Khalfan then accused the Brotherhood of “seizing power in Arab Spring countries with support from the US.”
“The seizure of power by the Brotherhood will divide the Arab World into two halves: countries with the Muslim Brotherhood and countries that refuse to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood.”
He then urged Arabs not to “put Syria in the Muslim Brotherhood’s hands”.
