Egypt charges Coptic Christians linked to blasphemous film

[Sunni Man]

CNN) -- Egyptian authorities have charged seven Coptic Christians living in the United States and a Florida pastor with insulting Islam and inciting sectarian strife for their alleged links to an online video that has enraged much of the Muslim world.

Egypt's public prosecutor announced the charges Tuesday, the latest development in the deadly backlash against the low-budget, amateurish 14-minute movie trailer produced privately in the United States and posted on YouTube.

The charges name alleged filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who is identified by Egyptian officials as Elia Bassili.

Egypt also charged Morris Sadek, who is believed to have posted the clip to YouTube.

The Florida pastor charged is Terry Jones, who was allegedly contacted by the filmmaker to help promote the video. Jones sparked some protests in Muslim countries last year when he staged a trial of Islam at his church.

The others accused were identified as Morcos Aziz; Fikri Zokloma, also known as Esmat Zokloma; Nabil Bissada; Nahed Metwali; and Nader Nicola. Aside from Nakoula, who lives in California, and Jones in Florida, it was not clear where the others live in the United States.

In addition to charges of insulting the Islamic religion, insulting Mohammed and inciting sectarian strife, all eight are charged with harming national unity and spreading false information, according to Adel Saaed, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Egyptian authorities added the names to their airport watch list.

Prosecutors said they will ask the international police agency, Interpol, to add the names to its wanted lists. U.S. authorities would also be contacted, according to prosecutors.

Egypt charges Coptic Christians linked to infamous video - CNN.com

 

[irosie91]

CNN) -- Egyptian authorities have charged seven Coptic Christians living in the United States and a Florida pastor with insulting Islam and inciting sectarian strife for their alleged links to an online video that has enraged much of the Muslim world.

Egypt's public prosecutor announced the charges Tuesday, the latest development in the deadly backlash against the low-budget, amateurish 14-minute movie trailer produced privately in the United States and posted on YouTube.

The charges name alleged filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who is identified by Egyptian officials as Elia Bassili.

Egypt also charged Morris Sadek, who is believed to have posted the clip to YouTube.

The Florida pastor charged is Terry Jones, who was allegedly contacted by the filmmaker to help promote the video. Jones sparked some protests in Muslim countries last year when he staged a trial of Islam at his church.

The others accused were identified as Morcos Aziz; Fikri Zokloma, also known as Esmat Zokloma; Nabil Bissada; Nahed Metwali; and Nader Nicola. Aside from Nakoula, who lives in California, and Jones in Florida, it was not clear where the others live in the United States.

In addition to charges of insulting the Islamic religion, insulting Mohammed and inciting sectarian strife, all eight are charged with harming national unity and spreading false information, according to Adel Saaed, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Egyptian authorities added the names to their airport watch list.

Prosecutors said they will ask the international police agency, Interpol, to add the names to its wanted lists. U.S. authorities would also be contacted, according to prosecutors.

Egypt charges Coptic Christians linked to infamous video - CNN.com

what a joke are the laws of shariah shit and those who attempt to impose that filth. The video was a service to all civilized mankind

 

[Sunni Man]

Hopefully, all 8 of these criminals will be extradited to Egypt under International warrants to face charges.

 

[MHunterB]

I somehow doubt that will happen - especially if any of 'em have US citizenship.

 

[MHunterB]

Not that I think any of 'em are other than sleazy scum OR that such a 'trailer' served any useful or positive purpose.

 

[whitehall]

Don't laugh. If president Hussein and the democrat party regime has their way American citizens might be routinely turned over to foreign governments for prosecution.

 

[Mad Scientist]

In America, if a man wanted to marry an 8 year old we'd call him a Pedophile.

But in Islam, he's called Muhammad (Or just The Groom).

 

[waltky]

America's Anti-Muslims Idolize Innocence Filmmaker...

‘I Am Nakoula’: Anti-Islam Moviemaker Now Cult Hero
September 28, 2012 | One calls Nakoula Basseley Nakoula 'a political prisoner'

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is many things: a huckster, a convenient scapegoat, a terrible filmmaker. But to the members of America’s Islamophobic fringe, the producer of “The Innocence of Muslims” is something altogether different. He’s a victim. Nakoula is a man being punished by the Muslim extremists who have infiltrated the White House, and now want to criminalize any criticism of the Prophet, according to anti-Islam crusaders like Robert Spencer. “He is a political prisoner,” Spencer says.

Never mind the fact that Nakoula seems to have tricked his actors into making a viral video that depicted Muhammad as a child molester. Never mind Nakoula’s conviction for bank fraud, which earned him a 21-month sentence in federal custody and a ban on using assumed identities, after he used 14 different aliases. Never mind the fact that Nakoula not only appeared to violate that probation by using the identity “Sam Bacile” when producing his video, or the fact the he doesn’t even seem to have been convicted under his real name. (In court Friday, he said he was really Mark Basseley Youssef. He changed it back in 2002 because “Nakoula is a girl’s name and it cause me troubles,” he claimed.)

To his defenders, it may even be kind of appropriate for Nakoula to go by so many names. To them, he’s become less of a man and more of a symbol – a prism for projecting a thousand conspiracy theories about a Muslim president gone mad with power, ready to unleash his scimitared hordes. “He has been arrested not for the technicality of the probation violation, but for insulting Muhammad. His arrest is a symbol of America’s capitulation to the Sharia,” Spencer writes. “I am Nakoula Basseley Nakoula,” blogger Scott Johnson adds. “Hillary Clinton, I insist that you have me arrested. I am thinking of making a movie about Mohammed,” declares Roger L. Simon, who continues, “Any Jews who now vote for Obama are ‘useful idiots’ beyond anything ever conceived by Lenin.”

Is there a First Amendment critique to be made of the White House’s handling of Nakoula and his video? There sure is. At first, the Obama administration tried to put the blame for the current unrest in the Middle East on Nakoula — a charge we now know to be unfair. Then the Pentagon’s top general tried in vain to talk one of the video’s promoters into abandoning “Innocence.” And the White House unsuccessfully asked YouTube to pull the video from its servers. Afterward, ACLU executive Ben Wizner said the civil liberties group was “concerned” by the federal government’s apparent attempt to “throw its weight behind a request for self-censorship.” That didn’t stop Investors’ Business Daily from fuming that “Americans might as well be living under Islamic blasphemy laws, yet the nation’s champion of free speech — the ACLU — is AWOL. That’s because it’s now largely run by Muslims.”

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See also:

Russian 'Jesus' Musical Shelved for Offending Christians
Sep 29, 2012 - Russians call 'Jesus Christ Superstar' a 'profanation'

A theatre in southern Russia has stopped selling tickets to the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" after prosecutors launched a probe into whether it is offensive to devout Christians, officials said Saturday. Saint Petersburg's Rock Opera company was to perform the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical -- a 1970s classic that has been regularly performed in Russia -- at the Philharmonic in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on October 18. However prosecutors launched a probe after a group of local residents complained that the musical presented a distorted image of Jesus Christ. "A probe is under way, and subsequently the appropriate decision will be taken," a spokesperson for the Rostov prosecutors told the Interfax news agency.

NTV television said ticket sales had been stopped pending the outcome of the probe. "We are shocked that someone has demanded that the musical be cancelled," an employee of the Philharmonic told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily. "We will be told on Monday whether it is going ahead." The employee said the show had already been performed in Rostov five times and had been sold out on the last occasion. The complaint, sent by 18 local residents to the prosecutors and theatre, said that the "image of Christ presented in the opera is false from the point of view of Christianity", local media reported. "As it stands, the work is a profanation," it added.

The controversy over the performance comes at a time of heightened tensions in Russia been religious believers and secular activists after the conviction of feminist punk rockers Pussy Riot for performing in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. "This show has been performed by our theatre for 20 years," one of Rock Opera's actresses Maria Klimova was quoted as saying by the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets. "People come to know this story -- generations. There is nothing insulting in this work. It is his (Lloyd Webber's) version of the story. This is all some kind of misunderstanding," she said.

A Church spokesman meanwhile emphasised that the Russian Orthodox Church had nothing to do with the request to ban the musical and even appeared to express admiration for the work. "The so-called Orthodox activists are expressing only their own opinion which is not shared by the Church," Igor Petrovsky, spokesman for the Church in the Rostov region said, quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda. He said many priests and believers had been grateful to hear the musical in the 1980s when it was first performed in the atheist Soviet Union and "hear something nice and beautiful about Christ." With music composed by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, "Jesus Christ Superstar" has been a major hit since its first performance in the early 1970s. It tells the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus in the style of a rock opera.

Source

 

[Jimmy_Jam]

I don't know. Whatever feelings one has about Islam, positive or negative (mine are mostly negative), why did Nakoula have to resort to secrets and lies to make his film? Is somebody who resorts to such secrecy and deception really deserving of idolization?

 

[waltky]

Rev. Terry Jones under death sentence...

Eight sentenced to death in Egypt over prophet film
November 28, 2012 - The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the sentence.

An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world. The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the sentence. The charges were brought in September during a wave of public outrage in Egypt over the amateur film, which was produced by an Egyptian-American Copt. The low-budget "Innocence of Muslims," parts of which were made available online, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.

Egypt's official news agency said the court found the defendants guilty of harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information — charges that carry the death sentence. Maximum sentences are common in cases tried in absentia in Egypt. Capital punishment decisions are reviewed by the country's chief religious authority, who must approve or reject the sentence. A final verdict is scheduled on Jan. 29. The man behind the film, Mark Basseley Youssef, was among those convicted. He was sentenced in a California court earlier this month to one year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter. Youssef, 55, admitted that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver's license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case. Multiple calls to Youssef's attorney in Southern California, Steve Seiden, were not returned Wednesday.

Florida-based Terry Jones, another of those sentenced, is the pastor of Dove World Outreach, a church of less than 50 members in Gainesville, Fla., not far from the University of Florida. He has said he was contacted by the filmmaker to promote the film, as well as Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the U.S. who posted the video clips on his website. In a telephone interview Wednesday, Jones said the ruling "shows the true face of Islam" — one that he views as intolerant of dissent and opposed to basic freedoms of speech and religion. "We can speak out here in America," Jones said. "That freedom means that we criticize government leadership, religion even at times. Islam is not a religion that tolerates any type of criticism."

An Associated Press reporter knocked on the door of Sadek's home in Chantilly, Virginia. No one answered. The connection to the film of the other five sentenced by the court was not immediately clear. They include two who work with Sadek at a radical Coptic group in the U.S. that has called for an independent Coptic state, a priest who hosts TV programs from the U.S. and a lawyer living in Canada who has previously sued the Egyptian state over riots in 2000 that left 21 Christians dead.

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[WillowTree]

Egypt is going to he'll in a. Hand basket. It's funny watching!