Muslim Brotherhood supporters protest
Muslim Brotherhood supporters protestAFP photo

Egypt's State Commissioners Authority, a body that advises the government on legal issues, recommended on Monday the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, reports the daily Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.

In an announcement, the Authority also called for the group’s national headquarters in Cairo’s Moqattam to be closed.

The recommendations were made in accordance with Law 84 of 2002, which prohibits non-government organizations and institutions from forming paramilitary groups.

The Authority's recommendations to the government are non-binding, noted Al-Ahram.

In March 2013, the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed since the 1950s, was officially registered as a non-governmental organization by the Ministry of Social Security.

The registration was made just one day a panel of judges recommended the movement’s dissolution.

After the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s president Mohammed Morsi on 3 July, then minister of social affairs Nagwa Khalil asked whether the Brotherhood’s headquarters had contained weapons and whether there were militias or militant groups linked to the group.

The questions were asked after eight people died on July 1 in clashes at the Brotherhood HQ in Moqattam after dozens of protesters stormed the building.

Shortly after Morsi was ousted, the interim Egyptian government announced it had begun deliberations on whether to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the violence surrounding the ouster.

The Brotherhood was outlawed for years until the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, after which it swept to power in the country's first democratic elections.

Such a ban, which authorities said is rooted in the group's use of violence, would be a repeat to the decades-long power struggle between the state and the Brotherhood.

Several Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie and his deputies Khairat El-Shater and Rashad Bayoumi, appeared at a criminal court on July 31 for allegedly inciting the killing of protesters at the group’s HQ.

Dozens of leading Brotherhood figures have been arrested since security forces dispersed two large pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14, during which hundreds were killed.

Morsi himself has been referred for trial on charges of inciting the murder of protesters.

The accusations relate to violence outside the presidential palace in Cairo last December when seven people were killed in clashes.