The Brothers and the Interior Ministry

(Note: I just want to stress again that this story is unconfirmed — will try to add details in the next few days.)

This, if true, is scary:

Freedom and Justice Party lawmakers have asked the interior minister to devote six-month intensive courses in the Police Academy to law school graduates to help fill the national security void, security sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm Wednesday.

The MPs also asked that most of those chosen for the courses be FJP or Muslim Brotherhood members, according to the same sources. The request came during a parliamentary committee hearing with Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim over the Port Said football violence earlier this month.

That hearing was held in a closed-doors session. If this is true it looks like as well as purging the Interior Ministry of known torturers (and presumably people against the MB), they also want to make sure that in a decade’s time or so mid-ranking and senior Interior Ministry officials will be Muslim Brothers. This — appointing officials from a dominant political party and its affiliated organization — should be a top concern. There is absolutely no reason for the Interior Ministry to recruit in any other manner than an ordinary examination.

The article goes on:

The sources said that FJP members met with former Interior Minister Mansour al-Essawy when he was in office and both sides agreed that Brotherhood students should comprise 10 percent Police Academy students. Senior group leaders have denied any agreement exists.

The son of senior Brotherhood official Essam al-Erian was recently accepted into the academy.

A little caution has to be exercised here because this could very well be a counter-attack by security figures to discredit the Brothers as they try to “cleanse” the ministry — something that all political forces have asked for. But it also highlights the need for greater scrutiny of the Muslim Brotherhood, which continues to operate as a semi-secret society with no transparency on its finances and membership with little justification now.