The Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. The organization gained supporters throughout the Arab world and influenced other Islamist groups such as Hamas with its "model of political activism combined with Islamic charity work", and in 2012 sponsored the elected political party in Egypt after the January Revolution in 2011. However, it faced periodic government crackdowns for alleged terrorist activities, and as of 2015 is considered a terrorist organization by the governments of Bahrain, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Movement for the Society of Peace is an Islamist party in Algeria, led by Mahfoud Nahnah until his death in 2003. Its current leader is Bouguerra Soltani. It is aligned with the international Muslim Brotherhood.
Liberalism in Egypt or Egyptian liberalism is a political ideology that traces its beginnings to the 19th century.
The Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic organization that was founded in Ismailia, Egypt by Hassan al-Banna in March 1928 as an Islamist religious, political, and social movement. The group spread to other Muslim countries but has its largest, or one of its largest, organizations in Egypt, where for many years it has been the largest, best-organized, and most disciplined political opposition force, despite a succession of government crackdowns in 1948, 1954, 1965 after plots, or alleged plots, of assassination and overthrow were uncovered. Following the 2011 Revolution the group was legalized, and in April 2011 it launched a civic political party called the Freedom and Justice Party (Egypt) to contest elections, including the 2012 presidential election when its candidate Mohamed Morsi became Egypt's first democratically elected president. One year later, however, following massive demonstrations, Morsi was overthrown by the military and arrested. As of 2014, the organization has been declared a terrorist group by Russia, Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and is once again suffering a severe crackdown.
Hazem Salah Abu Ismail is an Egyptian lawyer and Salafi Islamist politician. He has been described by The Economist as a "populist Salafist."
The al‑Nour Party, or "Party of The Light", is one of the political parties created in Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. It has an ultra-conservative Islamist ideology, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law. It has been described as the political arm of the Salafi Call Society, and "by far the most prominent" of the several new Salafi parties in Egypt, which it has surpassed by virtue of its "long organizational and administrative experience" and "charismatic leaders". Its political aim is to establish a theocratic state on the lines of Wahhabism like in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was found to be the main financer of the party according to the public German television news service ARD (broadcaster).
The Islamist Bloc, formally the Alliance for Egypt was an electoral alliance of Egyptian political parties, formed for the Egyptian parliamentary election, 2011–2012. It consisted of two Salafist parties, Al-Nour and Authenticity Party, as well as the Building and Development Party, which is the political wing of the Islamic Group. The alliance was publicly announced on 3 November 2011.
The Authenticity Party is one of the political parties created in Egypt after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. It has an ultra-conservative Islamist Salafist ideology, which believes in implementing strict Sharia law. The party was formed by the former head of the Virtue Party, General Adel Abdel Maksoud; he left the Virtue Party after allegedly discovering a plot which changed the moderate principles of the party. The party is considering leaving the Anti-Coup Alliance.
The Egyptian Constituent Assembly of 2012 (CA) is the committee for the creation of a new Constitution of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood had announced that the Constituent Assembly would vote on the constitution on 29 November 2012. The Constituent Assembly will be able to avoid its possible dissolution by voting on the constitution earlier than the release of a ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court on the assembly's legitimacy; the ruling was expected to occur on 2 December 2012. The court has postponed the verdict in response to protests. The Constituent Assembly approved the constitution on 29 November 2012; more than 16 hours were spent voting on its articles.
The Strong Egypt Party is an Egyptian centrist political party founded in 2012 by former presidential candidate Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh.
The Arab Unification Party is an Islamist political party that was founded by former leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Labour Party, independents and Islamists. The party withdrew from the Anti-Coup Alliance.
The Virtue Party is a Salafist political party. The party stated in September 2012 that it and the Renaissance Party would merge.
Chokri Belaïd, also transliterated as Shokri Belaïd, was a Tunisian lawyer and politician who was an opposition leader with the left-secular Democratic Patriots' Movement. Belaïd was a vocal critic of the Ben Ali regime prior to the 2011 Tunisian revolution and of the then Islamist-led Tunisian government. On 6 February 2013, he was fatally shot outside his house in El Menzah, close to the Tunisian capital, Tunis. As a result of his assassination, Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali announced his plan to dissolve the existing national government and to form a temporary "national unity" government.
The Al-Ansar Party is a Salafist political party in Egypt. It is one of three parties that are part of Hazem Salah Abu Ismail's network of political parties; the other two parties are the Egyptian Nation Party and the Flag Party. The party would have been part of a coalition including the People Party, the Building and Development Party and the Virtue Party; however Hazem Salah Abu Ismail formed a coalition called the Nation Alliance without the Al Ansar Party.
The Anti-Coup Alliance is a coalition in Egypt formed to defeat the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. The coalition is made up of approximately 40 Islamist parties and groups.
The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is an Egyptian Islamist political party. The ex-president of the party, Mohamed Morsi, won the 2012 presidential election, and in the 2011 parliamentary election it won more seats than any other party. It is nominally independent, but has strong links to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the largest political group in Egypt. The party was banned and dissolved in 2014; however, it continues to function underground.
A political crisis evolved in Tunisia following the assassination of leftist leader Mohamed Brahmi in late July 2013, during which the country's mainly secular opposition organized several protests against the ruling Troika alliance that was dominated by Rashid al-Ghannushi's Islamist Ennahda Movement. The events came as part of the aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution which ousted the country's longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, followed by a general election which saw Ennahda win a plurality alongside Moncef Marzouki's allied Congress for the Republic (CPR). The crisis gradually subsided when Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh resigned and a new constitution was adopted in January 2014.
