Salafi Dawah leaders have revealed a proposal for a "repentance" campaign to be conducted in prisons, targeting detained Muslim Brotherhood supporters through intensive sessions aimed at "correcting the concepts and beliefs planted in their minds by the Muslim Brotherhood."
Yasser Borhamy, vice president of the Salafi Dawa, said: "There are many young supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in prisons and I believe the Interior Ministry needs to classify them properly, because a large sector of them showed their sympathy for the organization because they believe the Brotherhood's interpretation of the events, which describes the situation as a war on Islam."
"These people are easy to correct, and to be put on the right path, away from the Brotherhood's deviations. It's also easy to convince them to renounce violence and not to clash with the state," he added.
In a statement on Tuesday after returning from the Umrah pilgrimage, Borhamy added: "The Muslim Brotherhood tried to convince its followers and Islamists with wrong interpretations, in accordance with the group's view, so they wage a war against the state on it's behalf."
"We were the first to reject that and we explained why this was dangerous," Borhamy added.
The Salafi Dawa is willing to support the state with ideas and proposals and to put forward a plan to combat extremist thought from the point of view of moderate Islam, according to Borhamy.
Commenting on the attack he suffered from Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Mecca, Borhamy said: "The absence of knowledge is one of the greatest causes of these kinds of temptations. If they had been aware, their behavior would have been different."
Adel Nasr, a spokesman for the Salafi Dawa, called on Muslim Brotherhood youth and sympathizers to "understand the reality", stressing that the group insists on causing more evil, destruction, and bloodshed, while the Dawa is trying to correct those concepts and to confront extremist speech, so as not to repeat the 1960's events. Nasr said the Salafi Dawa continues to work so as to prevent confrontation with the state, pointing out that the Muslim Brotherhood has rejected dialogue and debate.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
