Egypt has taken the first step towards revoking the citizenship of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar, according to a report appearing on Monday.
Major General Hussein al-Ridi, an assistant to the interior minister for immigration and citizenship issues, told Dubai-based news channel Al-Arabiya that a request to revoke the Egyptian citizenship of Mahmoud al-Zahar and 11 of his family members has been forwarded to the government for approval.
Al-Ridi explained that al-Zahar and his family belong to an organization which “works to weaken Egypt’s economic and social system,” a reference to the Hamas movement, which was branded a terror organization under Egyptian law in early March.
According to al-Ridi, al-Zahar was one of some 8,000 Palestinians who received Egyptian citizen during the tenure of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated President Mohammed Morsi. Palestinians who are found to be members of “a terror organization or a foreign army or military establishment” are subject to immediate revocation of their Egyptian citizenship.
Since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt last year, the country’s rulers have taken a hard line against the Islamist organization and its Gaza-based offshoot, Hamas. Last year, Hamas called the Egypt-imposed isolation it suffered a “death sentence” and was forced to cancel its anniversary celebration last December in response to the resulting economic crisis. Egypt has cracked down on Hamas’s smuggling, and earlier this year closed smuggling tunnels that ended in a mosque.
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