AMMAN, Jordan –  The spokesman for Jordan’s largest opposition group says authorities in the kingdom have arrested a senior Muslim Brotherhood official over an op-ed piece critical of the United Arab Emirates.

Spokesman Murad Adaileh says the Brotherhood’s deputy secretary-general, Zaki Bani Irsheid, was taken into custody by security forces late on Thursday after a meeting at the group’s headquarters in Amman’s Abdali neighborhood.

Adaileh says Irsheid, who is also a leader of the Islamic Action Front, the Brotherhood’s political arm, is in jail pending an investigation into an op-ed piece he wrote last week criticizing the United Arab Emirates’ recent designation of the Brotherhood as a terrorist group.

Irsheid is the third senior Brotherhood figure to be arrested in recent months in Jordan as part of a crackdown on opposition.