Kerry says Muslim Brotherhood ‘stole’ Egypt’s revolution

The Muslim Brotherhood “stole” Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution, Secretary of State John Kerry charged Wednesday in some of his toughest comments to date about the Islamist group.

Kerry’s comments put him at odds with the White House, which last year called the election of the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi a “milestone” in Egypt’s road to democracy. The administration has announced a freeze in advanced military sales to the country after the military deposed Morsi in July and violently cracked down on his supporters.

“Those kids in Tahrir Square, they were not motivated by any religion or ideology,” Kerry said at a briefing of the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council.

Their desire for “a chance to get an education and have a job and have a future, and not have a corrupt government that deprived them of all of that and more … drove that revolution,” he said. “And then it got stolen by the one single-most organized entity in the state, which was the Brotherhood.”

Kerry has previously said the military aimed at “restoring democracy” when it ousted Morsi. He declined to bring up the former president’s name when he visited military leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier this month on the eve of Morsi’s trial on charges of inciting violence and murder during Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring uprising against strongman Hosni Mubarak.

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