Egypt has begun the demolition of a new hospital built by Muslim Brotherhood for the poor in the capital over what it called the building’s ‘unsafe’ edifice. The decisions to tear down the 250-bed Islamic Medical Association’s Central Charity Hospital built with a burgeoning budget in Cairo comes over the seven-story building’s height. “These demolitions are being carried out on buildings higher than the expected range, raising safety concerns,” local government spokesperson Khalid Mustafa was reported as saying.
However, Egypt’s main opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, has accused authorities of playing politics and trying to undermine the party’s status in public. “[The demolitions] are politically motivated. [Other] people build on government-owned land and no one evacuates them,” Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef was reported as saying. “There is oppression of everything that is Brotherhood-related,” he added.
The Muslim Brotherhood has run various networks of social projects in order to help the poor. Egypt, however, has banned political activities of the group despite its popularity and accession of a fifth of the national assembly in the country’s 2005 elections.