Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood HQ shut down in police raid

Jordanian security services have closed the Amman headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the country's main opposition force, a spokesperson for the movement said on Wednesday.

"Jordanian security services searched and evacuated the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood before sealing off the entrance with red wax," Muath al-Khawaldeh told The New Arab.

The government had banned the group in Jordan over a year ago, facilitating an alternative for defectors to form another political group called the Muslim Brotherhood Society.

A government source told The Jordan Times that the decision to shut down the old MB headquarters came because the group is unlicensed and they are "not showing any intent to rectify their situation".

In late March, authorities prevented the MB from holding its internal elections, which were scheduled for April.

Khawaldeh attributed the decision at the time to a motion made by its rival movement, the Muslim Brotherhood Society, which now claims to be the sole legitimate Brotherhood entity.

"This is a violation of the law," he told The Jordan Times at the time, describing the government's move as "unprecedented" in the kingdom’s political life.

"This decision prompts us to reconsider many issues, including current [internal] negotiations for taking part in the upcoming parliamentary elections."

Three relatively pragmatic groups have broken away from the more hawkish Brotherhood core group and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front, over the past year.

Jordanian security services searched and evacuated the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood before sealing off the entrance with red wax - Muath Khawaldeh

Disagreements focused on whether to participate in elections in Jordan and the nature of ties with the parent movement and Hamas, the Brotherhood branch in the Palestinian territories.

The original Muslim Brotherhood was licensed in 1946 as a charity affiliated with the mother group in Egypt and was relicensed in 1953 as an Islamic society. 

Although the group modified their by-laws in February, officially ending their affiliation to the regionwide movement based in Egypt, they are still considered "illegal" by authorities as they are not registered.

The decision to cut ties with the main movement in Egypt was considered the latest setback for the wider Brotherhood, once seen as the main political beneficiary of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings but hit hard in recent years by government crackdowns.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi served as Egypt's first democratically elected president for a brief period before being overthrown by a military coup in 2013, where the group is now outlawed.