CAIRO — More than a dozen Egyptian protesters, angry over what they called an anti-Muslim video, scaled the outer wall of the fortress-like U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday and took down an American flag.
In its place, they raised a black flag that read: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet” before Egyptian security forces sought to tame the crowd.
As night fell, protesters continued to gather outside the embassy in one of the biggest demonstrations there since the fall of Hosni Mubarak‘s government early last year. Security forces surrounded the compound to prevent protesters from again storming it, though some demonstrators remained on the wall, waving black flags.
As many as 2,000 demonstrators had rallied outside the embassy in a gathering called for by the Islamic conservative Salafist movement to protest a video posted on YouTube that they said insulted Islam. The mood was heated and people in the crowd could not even agree which video they were protesting against.
Some said it was a film made by Egyptian Coptic immigrants in the United States that had been played in Egypt on private TV channel Al Nas, run by Salafists, before the rally. The video shown on the channel refers to Muhammad and his followers as “child lovers.” It also showed the prophet speaking to a supposed Muslim donkey, asking him whether he loves women. The channel’s enraged host and a commentator then demanded to know how Islam could be treated in such a debasing way.
Others said they were protesting a video made in a collaboration of Copts in the United States and Florida preacher Terry Jones, whose 2011 burning of a Koran triggered riots in Afghanistan.
Nader Bakar, spokesman of Al Nour party, the political arm of the Salafist movement, denied any involvement in the uproar.
“We were there for a couple of hours in a peaceful protest,” said Bakar, who had called for the demonstration the day before. “We are against this movie being made to defame the prophet. The U.S. Embassy understood this and they issued a statement condemning hateful rhetoric.”
Bakar acknowledged that he had only read about the video in a newspaper but not watched it before calling for protests.
The hysteria was a reminder of the volatility of politics in post-Mubarak Egypt, where, more than ever, rumor can stir people into a frenzy.
“Many of the people here haven’t even seen the movie,” said Mostafa Nageh, a youth who attended the protest. “Most people came out to protest just because they heard that a video insulting the prophet was made in the U.S.”
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the breach of the embassy wall “came up pretty quickly” and involved a “relatively modest group of people, but caught probably us and the Egyptian security outside by some surprise.” She said she was not aware of any injuries.
She said that “protest is possible in the new Egypt,” and the action didn’t signal a new anti-Americanism by the public or government of Egypt.
Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities ordered the arrest of former presidential candidate Ahmed Shafik in a corruption case that involves Mubarak’s two sons and four retired military generals.
A judge referred Shafik, along with Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, to criminal court on charges of purposefully squandering public funds and selling land for less than market value in the Ismailia governorate, Egypt’s state news agency reported.
The allegations bring up Shafik’s role as a chairman of a housing association in the 1990s when he reportedly sold land to the Mubarak brothers at unreasonably low prices. The judge called for Shafik, who was Hosni Mubarak’s close friend and last prime minister, to be jailed and remain in custody until trial.
Shafik, who has lived in the United Arab Emirates since losing June’s presidential election to Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi, recently slammed the Egyptian authorities’ decision to investigate him. In a television interview, he said the state’s actions were “politically motivated.”
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