Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya demands removal from US terror list

Joel Gulhane
2 Min Read
In a press conference held on Sunday, Khaled Al-Sharif, spokesman for the party, asserted that the Building and Development Party does not oppose the West. (Photo courtesy of The Building and Development Party Facebook Page)
In a press conference held on Sunday, Khaled Al-Sharif, spokesman for the party, asserted that the Building and Development Party does not oppose the West. (Photo courtesy of The Building and Development Party Facebook Page)
In a press conference held on Sunday, Khaled Al-Sharif, spokesman for the party, asserted that the Building and Development Party does not oppose the West.
(Photo courtesy of The Building and Development Party Facebook Page)

The Building and Development Party, the political wing of the Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya, called on the United States government to release its spiritual leader Omar Abdel Rahman from prison and to remove the group from the Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) list.

In a press conference held on Sunday, Khaled Al-Sharif, spokesman for the party, asserted that the Building and Development Party does not oppose the West. He also demanded that the Abdel Rahman be released and that the Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya be removed from the FTO list.

The Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya was placed on the US FTO list in 1997 following years of armed insurgency against the Egyptian government. The group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in the 1990s. In 2003 the leaders of Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya renounced violence, which prompted the release of many of the group’s imprisoned members. Despite this the group has remained on the FTO list and was also included on a 2005 update of the European Union list of terror organisations.

Abdel Rahman, also known as ‘the blind sheikh’, is currently serving a life sentence in the US in connection to the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing in New York.

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Joel Gulhane is a journalist with an interest in Egyptian and regional politics. Follow him on Twitter @jgulhane
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