Jordan court dissolves Muslim Brotherhood

Jordan’s top court has dissolved the country’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement, an official said on Thursday, citing the group’s failure to “rectify its legal status”.

“The Court of Cassation yesterday (Wednesday) issued a final verdict ruling that the Muslim Brotherhood group is dissolved... for failing to rectify its legal status under Jordanian law,” the official said, requesting anonymity.

The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a pan-Islamic movement with both charitable and political arms.

It has faced years of pressure, especially in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and has been outlawed as a “terrorist” group in Egypt and banned in several other countries.

Amman had tolerated the group’s political arm for decades, but since 2014 authorities have considered it illegal, arguing its licence was not renewed under a 2014 law on political parties.

It continued to operate, but its relations with the Jordanian state deteriorated further from 2015 when the government authorised an offshoot group, the Muslim Brotherhood Association.

In April 2016, security services closed the Brotherhood’s Amman headquarters and several regional offices, transferring their ownership to the splinter group. The original Brotherhood took the case to court in a bid to retrieve the properties, but the court in its verdict ordered it dissolved.