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Kenya outlaws Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ur-Tahrir as terror groups
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen speaks during the 42nd Edition of Jukwaa la Usalama at Tom Mboya Labour College, Kisumu, on September 18, 2025.
What you need to know:
- Membership, financing, association, or propaganda in support of the groups is now a prosecutable offense in Kenya.
- The order will remain in force indefinitely until revoked either by the Interior Cabinet Secretary or by a court of law.
The government has formally declared the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ur-Tahrir as terrorist organizations operating under the radar in Kenya, placing them in the same category as Al-Shabaab and other outlawed extremist groups.
In a special issue of the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 157 dated September 19, 2025, Interior and National Administration Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen issued Legal Notice No. 157, citing powers conferred under Section 3(3) of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, Cap. 59B.
The notice, titled The Prevention of Terrorism (Declaration of Specified Entities) Order, 2025, lists the two Islamist groups in its schedule, effectively criminalizing their activities within Kenyan territory.
The declaration means that membership, financing, association, or propaganda in support of the groups is now a prosecutable offense in Kenyan courts, with penalties ranging from heavy fines to long prison terms.
The order will remain in force indefinitely until revoked either by the Interior Cabinet Secretary or by a court of law.
Kenya’s decision to outlaw the two transnational Islamist movements is significant as it signals a tightening of the country’s counterterrorism framework at a time when extremist networks are increasingly fluid, globalized, and adaptive.
While the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ur-Tahrir are not known to have executed major violent attacks on Kenyan soil, intelligence assessments have long flagged them for their ideological radicalization, clandestine recruitment strategies, and links to international terror ecosystems.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, presents itself as a socio-political and religious movement.
Menace of terrorism
However, various governments, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have proscribed it as a terrorist group, accusing it of fomenting extremism and subverting state structures.
Kenya’s move now aligns it with a growing bloc of nations that view the Brotherhood not merely as a political outfit but as a radical force with destabilizing ambitions.
Hizb-ur-Tahrir, established in Jerusalem in 1953, has also been a subject of global concern.
It seeks the establishment of a global Islamic Caliphate and rejects democratic systems as un-Islamic.
Though the group often claims non-violence, its rejection of state authority and its absolutist ideological stance make it fertile ground for violent extremist offshoots. Kenya now follows queue of nations that have already banned it.
Kenya’s security trajectory in the last two decades has been deeply shaped by the menace of terrorism.
The 1998 US Embassy bombings in Nairobi, the 2002 Kikambala Paradise Hotel attack, the 2013 Westgate Mall siege, the 2015 Garissa University massacre, and the 2019 DusitD2 complex attack stand as grim reminders of the country’s vulnerability.
Most of these attacks have been linked to Al-Shabaab, the Somali-based Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Yet, security experts have consistently warned that Kenya must not focus narrowly on Al-Shabaab while ignoring broader radicalization currents.
Extremist formations
Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb-ur-Tahrir, though not as overtly violent in Kenya, provide ideological pipelines that normalize extremist worldviews.
Their presence—particularly in urban informal settlements, coastal towns, and university spaces—has raised alarm over silent indoctrination.
By formally designating them as terrorist entities, Kenya is cutting off a potential conveyor belt that could feed Al-Shabaab, ISIS, or future extremist formations with ready recruits and sympathizers.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act empowers the Interior Cabinet Secretary to recommend and declare entities as terrorist organizations if there is reasonable evidence of their involvement in terrorism or extremist activities.
