European Muslim Brotherhood Youth Group Participates in European Greens Civil Society Panel

On 21 June 2022, the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Orga­ni­za­tions (FEMYSO) par­tic­i­pat­ed in an in-per­son Brus­sels civ­il soci­ety pan­el host­ed by the Euro­pean Parliament’s Greens Group. As part of the half-day event, par­tic­i­pants were said to have shared their key pri­or­i­ties and pol­i­cy pro­pos­als with MEPs, cam­paign­ers, and pol­i­cy advi­sors. Accord­ing to a FEMYSO Face­book post:

The event start­ed with a pan­el dis­cus­sion facil­i­tat­ed by MEP Philippe Lam­bert where MEP Daniel Fre­und and Joy Clara Schaflein, cit­i­zen rep­re­sen­ta­tives at Con­fer­ence on the Future of Europe spoke about the prospects and the fol­low-up of the con­fer­ence, chal­lenges and the imple­men­ta­tion process.

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The Euro­pean Greens (EFA) web­site says the event aimed at devel­op­ing the EFA strat­e­gy for the next two years, pro­vid­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to influ­ence the party’s pol­i­cy-mak­ers in an infor­mal set­ting and net­work with staff and oth­er NGO col­leagues. Break-out ses­sions, held in the pres­ence of sev­er­al Greens MPs, cov­ered top­ics such as the rule of law and democ­ra­cy, eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion, and social and eco­nom­ic justice.

FEMYSO is the youth/student arm of the Coun­cil of Euro­pean Mus­lims, for­mer­ly known as the Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Orga­ni­za­tions in Europe (FIOE), known to rep­re­sent the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in Europe. One of the impor­tant lead­ers of FEMYSO over the years has been Ger­man Mus­lim Broth­er­hood leader Ibrahim El-Zay­at, and in recent times, its lead­er­ship has been drawn from the fam­i­ly of impor­tant Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) lead­ers. Almost all FEMYSO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are also tied to the GMB in Europe. Over the years, FEMYSO has devel­oped rela­tion­ships with the Coun­cil of Europe, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, and many oth­er sig­nif­i­cant orga­ni­za­tions at the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al levels.

Pri­or Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing on the rela­tion­ship between Euro­pean Greens par­ties and Islamist groups has included:

• In Novem­ber 2020, the GIOR dis­cov­ered that Dutch Greens MP and for­mer FEMYSO board mem­ber Kau­thar Bouchal­likh is like­ly the daugh­ter of Mostapha Bouchal­likh, one of the most impor­tant lead­ers of the GMB in the Netherlands.

• In April 2021, the GIOR report­ed that the Berlin Sen­a­tor for Jus­tice and his Greens par­ty had vowed con­tin­ued coop­er­a­tion with an indi­vid­ual described as an anti-Mus­lim racism expert, defy­ing oppo­si­tion warn­ings about his ties to Islamist groups.

• In May 2022, the GIOR report­ed that politi­cians of the Dutch Greens par­ty attend­ed a Ramadan fast-break­ing cer­e­mo­ny held by Mil­lî Görüş, a Turk­ish reli­gious and polit­i­cal move­ment that has called for an end to the sec­u­lar regime in Turkey.