FOXNews.com: Petition calls for White House to declare Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group

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Petition calls for White House to declare Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group Aug 2nd 2013, 06:30 A new petition on the White House website asks the administration to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The request was posted on petitions.whitehouse.gov on July 7 and quickly garnered more than the 100,000 signature requirement for the Obama administration to officially consider the request. "Declare Muslim Brotherhood organization as a terrorist group," was written within days of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who drew much of his support from the group, being removed from power by the military in early July. The petition states, "Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of violent killings & terrorizing opponents. Also MB has direct ties with most terrorist groups like Hamas. "The Muslim Brotherhood has shown in the past few days that it is willing to engage in violence and killing of innocent civilians in order to invoke fear in the hearts of its opponents. This is terrorism," the petition reads. "We ask the US government to declare MB as a terrorist group for a safer future for all of us." The administration has remained relatively quiet about the Brotherhood's recent methods in Egypt while Morsi was in power. "The Muslim Brotherhood has surely inspired or spawned terrorist organizations, I don't know that the Brotherhood itself has engaged in specific terrorist activities itself," Lawrence Haas, a former senior White House official and current Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the American Foreign Policy Council told FoxNews.com. "For the [Obama] administration, the issue is more basic," he added. "The Brotherhood has now involved itself fully in the political process of its home nation, Egypt. Rather than rule democratically, however, Morsi and the Brotherhood began to rule in an authoritarian manner, which was always the fear about this fundamentalist organization. "By downplaying human rights, the administration avoids some government-to-government conflict. At the same time, it raises doubts among the hundreds of millions of people across the region, whether we are on their side or on the side of the autocrats. ..I think the better long-term strategy for the administration is to promote human rights more forcefully, even if that means occasional discomfort on the diplomatic front. " The "We the People" petition program, which was set up by the White House late last year, stipulates that all requests must receive some sort of response from the administration when150 signatures are added within the first 30 days and the petition gains 100,000 signatures by the second 30 days. The goal was met in less than a month with the petition hitting 136,383 signatures as of Thursday. The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.

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