Protesters Overrun US Embassy In Egypt Over Mysterious Movie

No one can actually verify what film the protesters are supposedly upset about which makes the protests against the US Embassy in Cairo all the more odd and disturbing. Reuters and USA Today can't seem to track down the film, but regardless of the facts and circumstances, a group of protesters set out to overrun the US Embassy in Cairo. They succeeded in taking down the US flag for a time and scrawling graffiti referring to not disgracing the name of the prophet Mohammad.

From Reuters:

"This movie must be banned immediately and an apology should be made ... This is a disgrace," said 19-year-old, Ismail Mahmoud, a member of the so-called "ultras" soccer supporters who played a big role in the uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak last year.

Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet to be offensive.

Mahmoud called on President Mohamed Mursi, Egypt's first civilian president and an Islamist, to take action. Many others were supporters of Islamist groups.

About 20 people stood on top of the embassy wall in central Cairo, where about 2,000 protesters had gathered.

"There is no god but Allah, Mohammad is Allah's messenger. We will sacrifice ourselves for you, Allah's messenger," they chanted, with many waving religious flags.

A U.S. embassy official had no immediate comment on the protesters' actions but the embassy had put out a statement earlier on Tuesday condemning those who hurt the religious feelings of Muslims or followers of any other religions.

"We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others," the U.S. embassy said in its statement.

One slogan scrawled on the walls of the embassy, a fortress-like structure that is near Tahrir Square where Egyptians revolted against Mubarak, said: "If your freedom of speech has no limits, may you accept our freedom of action."

An Egyptian state website carried a statement by Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church condemning what it said were moves by some Copts living abroad "to finance the production of a film insulting Prophet Mohammad".

About a 10th of Egypt's 83 million people are Christians.

It was not immediately clear which film angered protesters.

However, according to the website www.standupamerianow.org, the Christian Pastor Terry Jones, who angered Muslims by burning a copy of the Koran, was due to take part in an event on Tuesday called "International Judge Mohammad Day" in Florida in which it would symbolically put the Prophet on trial and play it out live over the Internet.

"Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy," the U.S. embassy statement said, adding that it condemned the efforts by "misguided individuals" to hurt the feelings of Muslims.

What's interesting is that you've got hundreds of people protesting a film allegedly being made in the US but not a single person can actually cite the name of the film. Moreover, it appears that FARS (Iran) is pushing the claim that Egyptian Coptic Christians are behind the film and fanning sectarian violence that will inevitably result from such claims.

So, the only "film" that could even fit the profile is some Internet production by Terry Jones who's got quite the reputation for hating Islam and showing a tremendous amount of religious intolerance.

That might be what they're protesting, but as with most kinds of protests across the Arab world, all it takes is a rumor for things to take hold, and no amount of debunking will stop things.

What we do know is that Egypt has been hit by several waves of sectarian violence since the fall of Hosni Mubarak and Coptic Christians have been under assault from Islamists who are asserting themselves at the Coptic Christians' expense.

UPDATE:
According to twitter links to this website provided by NJDhockeyfan, the name of the film is Life of King of Islam but there's no reference in IMDB.com. It was supposedly done by Sam Basil (again no reference in imdb), but they refer to Terry Jones' actions. There's also a reference to Dutch involvement, but it's not clear what is being referenced.

UPDATE:
The Atlantic seems to have run down more details, though there's way too much speculation about who is behind the film, their intentions, and other salient details.

The movie is called Mohammed Nabi al-Muslimin, or Mohammed, Prophet of the Muslims. If you've never heard of it, that's because most of the few clips circulating online are dubbed in Arabic. The above clip, which is allegedly from the film (update: Kurt Werthmuller, a Coptic specialist at the Hudson Institute, says he's confirmed the clip's authenticity) is one of the only in English. That's also because it's allegedly produced by Florida Pastor Terry Jones (yes, the asshole who burnt the Koran despite Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' pleas) and two Egyptians living in the U.S., according to Egyptian press accounts. The Egyptians are allegedly Coptic, the Christian minority that makes up about a tenth of Egypt.

Obviously, there's a lot to this story that's still unclear. What we do know is that some members of Egypt's sometimes-raucous, often rumor-heavy media have been playing highly offensive clips from the highly offensive film, stressing its U.S. and Coptic connections. In the clip below, controversial TV host Sheikh Khaled Abdallah (known for such statements as "Iran is more dangerous to us than the Jews" and that Tehran had engineered a deadly soccer riot in Port Said) hypes the film as an American-Coptic plot and introduces what he says is its opening scene.

UPDATE:
A second American embassy has been besieged, this time in Libya. Libyan security forces have been fighting against unknown militias in the vicinity of the American embassy.

The AP reports that Morris Sadek is promoting the video on his website and on some television stations.

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Christian in the United States known for his strongly anti-Islam views, said in an interview from Washington that he was promoting the video on his Web site and on certain television stations, which he did not identify.

He said the video “explains the problems of the Copts who suffer from Muslims,” for which he blamed the Koran.

For several days, the Egyptian news media have been reporting on the movie, playing excerpts and blaming Mr. Sadek for it, with ultraconservative clerics going on the air to denounce it.

Medhat Klada, a representative of Coptic Christian organizations in Europe, said Mr. Sadek’s views did not represent those of expatriate Copts.

“He is an extremist,” he said in an interview from Switzerland. “We refuse any attacks on religions because of a moral position.”

This has the feel of the cartoon jihad in the making - where more than 100 people were killed around the world, several embassies were ransacked and torched, and all because of the publication of cartoons in a Danish publication, Jyllands Posten.

Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Taken 3/2012 inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Israel

Dueling Rallies (and Families) Fighting For Gay Marriage In New York

Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., who is a longtime opponent to gay marriage, led a rally in favor of traditional marriage in the Bronx.

That isn't all that surprising given that he and several of his fellow members of the State Senate oppose gay marriage in any formulation (civil unions/marriage).

However, his granddaughter has taken umbrage with his position. Erica Diaz has a personal stake in all this:

Erica Diaz, 22, a gay woman who is the senator’s granddaughter, wanted her grandfather’s supporters to know whom they were opposing.

“I am a Diaz; my family is very political,” said Ms. Diaz, whose pastel pink shirt stood in contrast to her grandfather’s bright white cowboy suit. “It is in my blood to stand up for what I believe in — regardless of who I am up against.”

Ms. Diaz’s supporters, far smaller than the raucous rally on the courthouse steps, numbered a couple of dozen, including her mother, sister and girlfriend.

They spun rainbow umbrellas in the rain and shouted through a bullhorn until a police officer said they did not have the proper permit.

It was years ago that Ms. Diaz told her grandfather that she was gay. The experience, she said, was a positive one. “He told me that regardless of my decision, he is my grandfather, and he loves me, and he respects me,” she recalled. “I respect the fact he believes what he believes.”

and she believes that her grandfather
still loves her, but he doesn't want her to get married to her companion.

At the same time, no one apparently wants to take the civil union approach. That's a compromise approach utilized in other states, but which doesn't have support of either the gay rights community or the Catholic Church, which sees this as simply marriage under a different guise.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made this a top priority for resolution in the current legislative session..

Indonesia Warns Of Christianization Threat Over Proposal To Build Church

Indonesia is the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, and minorities have had a difficult time preserving their religious freedoms. The latest strain on religious relations in the country follows Indonesian Inslamists who are up in arms over the proposal to build a church in Bekasi, which has a Muslim-majority. Rallies continue to be held opposing the construction of the church and warn against the Christianization of Indonesia.

In June, the Bekasi F.P.I. leader told The Jakarta Globe, “All Muslims should unite and be on guard because … the Christians are up to something.” He also suggested that it might be necessary for mosques to establish militias and be prepared to fight a “war” to prevent “Christianization.”

As Al Jazeera explained in a video report last week, the small Christian group said that it had obtained all the necessary signatures from local residents who agreed to allow them to build their church, but then the Islamist vigilantes pressed people to withdraw their approval.

F.P.I. vigilantes have attacked a wide range of targets in the past, throwing rocks at members of minority Muslim sects, beating gay people, destroying bars and vowing to track down the editor of Indonesia’s short-lived version of Playboy magazine, Erwin Arnada, who is now in hiding.

As Reuters explained in June when the vigilantes attacked a group of Indonesian legislators, the F.P.I. “attracts limited support in moderate, majority Muslim Indonesia, but fear of being seen as defending vice means politicians and police often turn a blind eye to their attacks on targets, such as transvestites, which are deemed un-Islamic.”

It's not quite a mirror image to the debate about the Cordoba House proposal to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero, but the parallels shouldn't be lost on anyone here.

It does, however, show that the world over struggles with religious freedoms and stresses that the United States and its First Amendment protections for free exercise of religion are there for a reason. Religious intolerance has been a significant issue as the central government has left issues largely up to the regional governments, increasing the intolerance of minority religious groups.

More Than 500 Massacred In Sectarian Clashes In Nigeria

Words can't describe how many of the people killed were slaughtered.

At least 500 people were killed on Sunday in communal clashes near Nigeria's central city of Jos, a state governor's advisor told AFP on Monday, revising a previous toll of around 100 dead.

"We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act... by Fulani herdsmen," Dan Manjang said in a telephone interview.

Nigeria's acting president put security forces on alert after machete wielding gangs massacred the people, mainly women and children, officials said.

Witnesses described how victims were caught in animal traps and fishing nets as they tried to flee their attackers, who hacked them to death in what appeared to have been a well-organised attack.

Much of the violence in the early hours of Sunday was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, near the Jos.

The reports frequently drop the motivations behind who was killed and who did the killing, but this New York Times report indicates that the victims were Christians murdered by rampaging Muslims. The violence is along a dividing line between the Muslim North and Christian South.

There have been numerous skirmishes in recent years along the dividing line, but the current massacre was apparently unprovoked. One should expect reprisals from Christians against the Muslims unless the government somehow manages to clamp down and provide security to prevent further bloodshed, which it has been unable to do for years.

Christians Under Continuing Assault In Holy Land From Islamists

While some Palestinians are trying to politicize Christmas and claim that Israel is trying to block Christian access to the Church of the Nativity, there are others who are trying to kill Christians in Gaza.

They said four masked gunmen tried to kidnap Nabil Fuad Ayad, who works as a guard at a local church. Nabil's cousin, Rami, was kidnapped and murdered two months ago by the same group, the sources said.

The sources identified the gunmen as members of the radical Islamic Salafi movement.

"They were dressed in the traditional Salafi clothes," said an eyewitness. "They were also carrying guns."

The gunmen tried to force Ayad into their car as he was walking in the street, but he managed to escape to a nearby shop. Shopkeepers who began shouting drove the gunmen away.

As they fled the scene, the assailants fired several shots into the air.

Salafism represents a Sunni Islamic school of thought whose followers argue that Islam was perfect and complete during the days of Prophet Muhammad, but that undesirable innovations have been added due to materialist and cultural influences.

Al Qaeda is an offshoot of the Salafists, who would consider any Muslim who doesn't strictly adhere to their own brand of Islam to be apostate. Death awaits those who do not conform.

This is who is looking to control and dominate Gaza and the territories vacated by Israel. These aren't groups with whom you can negotiate land for peace because they fundamentally reject your very essence and rationale for dominion over the land as you are not Muslim in land they deem to be theirs.

Islamists are chasing out Palestinian Christians, and are de fact cleansing Gaza of its Christian population just as surely as Christians have fled Bethlehem as a result of the Islamic terrorists pushing Christians out of a city central to Christianity for 2,000 years. Sure, the PA may make a show of how Christians can come to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas, but it is just that - a show.