The Muslim Brotherhood plans to sue an independent newspaper over an article that the group says insults its leader and female members, the group said Tuesday.
The Brotherhood said it will take legal action against Al-Fagr newspaper over an article written by Mohamed al-Baz titled "Women for pleasure: The political and sexual exploitation of the Brotherhood's harem" that was published last Thursday.
"We were taken aback by what Mr. Baz had written," the Brotherhood's spokesperson, Mahmoud Ghazlan, said. He said the article harms the reputation of female Brotherhood members and counts as libel.
He said Baz's article extends to the Brotherhood in general by talking about the group's "sordidness and its shameful stance on the girl dragged on the ground by army soldiers in Tahrir."
Baz is a secular journalist who has caused outrage among Egypt's conservative circles due to his ardent views against Islamic forces. He has written many articles that call for reinvestigating the history of Islam, a call that infuriates the conservative audience.
Ghazlan said the article insults Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, whom it described as "the idol whose word the Brotherhood handles as a divine revelation that can develop into a doctrine and legislation that rescue the people from non-religious governments."
Ghazlan said the article counts as libel and slander, punishable by law.
"We decided to resort to our fair judiciary, which we trust, so that such violators, who defame honorable people under the veneer of the freedom of opinion, can be deterred," he said.
In the article, Baz was reviewing a book published by Entissar Abdel Moniem, a former female member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which she slammed the Brotherhood for its vision of women as inferior in society.
He quoted Abdel Moniem as saying that the Brotherhood forced women to disappear, and when they allowed them to appear, they were only allowed to give lessons on women's religious obligation to obey men without questioning.
