Topic: WorldNetDaily
Earlier this year, we detailed how WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein deliberately cherry-picked a report on Egypt by the International Crisis Group in order to portray it as overly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. Klein asserted that the ICG report called for the Egypian government "to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood" but failed to note that it also pointed out that "serious questions linger" about whether the Muslim Brotherood can "make a credible case that they embrace the rules of democratic politics, including the principles of citizenship, rotation of power and multiparty political life," particularly "concerning the role of women and the place of religious minorities, neither of whom, for example, the Muslim Brothers believe should be eligible for the presidency."
Six months later, Klein is doing the exact same misleading cherry-picking. From a July 7 WND article:
In a June 2008 report entitled "Egypt's Muslim Brothers Confrontation or Integration," Soros' ICG urges the Egyptian regime to allow the group to participate in political life.
The report dismisses Egypt's longstanding government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood as "dangerously short-sighted."
The ICG report called on Mubarak's regime to "pave the way for the regularization of the Muslim Brothers' participation in political life," including by allowing for the "establishment of a political party with religious reference."
The ICG specifically stressed allowing the Brotherhood to serve as an Islamist party several times in its 2008 report.
Again, Klein failed to note that the ICG made numerous requests of the Muslim Brotherhood. From the ICG report:
To the Society of Muslim Brothers:
4. Engage in a dialogue with members of the government, opposition and civil society, notably by:
(a) approaching officials and reform-minded NDP members to discuss conditions necessary for the Society’s peaceful political integration;
(b) engaging with secular opposition parties and movements to form a consensus on how the Society can best be integrated as well as wider issues of political reform;
(c) engaging with representatives of the Christian community in a frank dialogue on sectarian relations and the Society’s stance toward religious minorities;
(d) supporting comprehensive political reform clearly, as opposed to a bilateral arrangement between the Society and the regime; and
(e) ensuring that consensus positions on these issues are formed within the Society in a democratic manner to avoid contradictory approaches by members.
5. Finalise and amend the Society’s political program, in particular by:
(a) altering its position on the role of women and non-Muslims in public life;
(b) continuing to seek input from a wide range of its members as well as non-members; and
(c) clarifying relations between the Society and a future related political party.
Such shoddy, deliberately misleading reporting inspires no confidence whatsoever that anything Klein writes for WND can be trusted.
