Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Calls For Protests on Friday
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt called on Wednesday to protest across the country on Friday against a full-length U.S. film deemed insulting to Islam. Yesterday, the U.S. ambassador in Libya and three other members of the diplomatic staff were killed in Benghazi during demonstrations to protest against the same film.
For its part, the Egyptian government denounced the film, but called for “restraint.”
The MB, from whose ranks come President Mohamed Morsi, called in a statement for “peaceful demonstrations Friday in front of the main mosques in Egypt to denounce the insults against religion and the Prophet.”
Earlier, protesters denounced the Coptic Christians in a rally held Wednesday in Cairo against the film. The Maspero Youth Union and the Coalition of Egyptian Coptic have condemned “all forms of contempt against any religion whatsoever, and any attempt to sow discord between people of different faiths.”
The Maspero Youth Union also called on its Facebook page for a rally this evening in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to protest against the film, which is “insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.”
The film was produced by an Israeli-American who describes Islam as a “cancer.”
The Maspero Youth Union said that “the Copts who took part in the production of the film in question are not representative of the vast majority of Copts. They represent neither Christianity nor the church, nor the Coptic diaspora. ” This film, however, may raise the pressure on Egypt’s Christians, who represent about 10% of the 82 million people.
