RIYADH (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Saudi Arabia has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group along with the Al Qaeda and a number of other groups.
It has warned those who join them or support them could face five to 30 years in prison.
The Muslim Brotherhood backed Egypt's Mohammed Morsi who was ousted as president last July. The Islamist party has been targeted by many Gulf nations since the military overthrow of Morsi.
Saudi Arabia has banned Brotherhood books from the ongoing Riyadh book fair and also withdrawn its ambassador from Qatar, a Brotherhood supporter, along with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates
A statement on Friday from the Saudi Interior Ministry said King Abdullah approved the findings of a committee entrusted with identifying extremist groups referred to in a royal decree earlier last month.
The statement, carried by official Saudi Press Agency, identified the other terrorist groups as al-Qaeda's branches in Yemen and Iraq, the Syrian al-Nusra Front.
The interior ministry said it would prosecute anyone backing these groups "financially or morally" or anyone who express sympathies for or promotes them.
It said the law would apply to all the groups and organizations identified by the United Nations Security Council or international bodies as terrorists or violent groups. It said the law would also be applied to any Saudi citizen or a foreigner residing in the kingdom for propagating atheism or pledging allegiance to anyone other than the kingdom's leaders.
The counterterrorism law bans meetings of the groups inside or outside of the kingdom and covers comments made online or to media outlets.
The kingdom has also forbidden its citizens from fighting in conflict zones, giving Saudis fighting abroad a 15-day ultimatum to return home or face imprisonment.
The decrees on Friday represent an escalation against the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's Sunni Islamist doctrines challenge the Saudi principle of dynastic rule.
There is also concern in Riyadh over the potential domestic security risks of Saudi extremists fighting in Syria. The Saudi interior ministry estimates around 1,200 Saudis have gone to Syria to fight, heightening worries that fighters could become radicalized and then return to Saudi Arabia and turn their weapons on the monarchy, say reports.
The new law is also believed to reflect pressure from the U.S., which wants to see Assad's overthrow but is alarmed by the rising influence of hard-line foreign jihadists -- many of them linked to al Qaeda -- among the rebels.
U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia and meet King Abdullah this month, said AP.
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7 March 2014 - 20:30
News ID: 511948
Saudi Arabia has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group along with the Al Qaeda and a number of other groups.
