Step by step how the anti-muslim video came to world attention

[Waiting For Everyman]

recommended on twitter by Evan Hill, Al Jazeera English reporter, as the best account of these events that he has seen...


Anti-U.S. outrage over video began with Christian activist’s phone call to a reporter
McClatchy Newspapers (Nancy A. Youssef and Amina Ismail)
Posted: 09/15/2012 5:15 PM


A crude video about the Prophet Muhammad that triggered an unprecedented outbreak of anti-American protest last week moved from being a YouTube obscurity in the United States to a touchstone for anger across the world through a phone call less than two weeks ago from a controversial U.S.-based anti-Islam activist to a reporter for an Egyptian newspaper.

Morris Sadek, a Coptic Christian who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., whose anti-Islam campaigning led to the revocation of his Egyptian citizenship earlier this year, had an exclusive story for Gamel Girgis, who covers Christian emigrants for al Youm al Sabaa, the Seventh Day, a daily newspaper here. Sadek had a movie clip he wanted Girgis to see; he e-mailed him a link.

“He told me he produced a movie last year and wanted to screen it on Sept. 11th to reveal what was behind the terrorists’ actions that day, Islam,” Girgis said, recalling the first call, which came on Sept. 4. Sadek, a longtime source, “considers me the boldest journalist, the only one that would publish such stories.”

Girgis said he watched the movie and found it insulting. He didn’t want to write about it. But Sadek called Girgis back and urged him to, telling him he could not deny that the movie existed.


Read more:
http://m.mcclatchydc.com/dc/db_112239/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=bOhH6UnB&full=true#display

[Spazito]

1. Very interesting read!

Thanks for posting this, it is well worth the read.

[Waiting For Everyman]

2. Thanks, I'm glad you thought so.

It brought up some additional people involved in this who I hadn't seen mentioned before.

[Spazito]

3. Yes, and shows how key Morris Sadek was and how intent he was...

in getting it into the Middle East media. It certainly shows, as well, that it was NOT intended for domestic viewing but intentially made, imo, to incite anger in the Middle East.

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. Yes, I agree with you on that.

Maybe Sadek wanted revenge for his Egyptian citizenship being revoked?

There was a quick mention of something interesting about Terry Jones:

Abdullah’s co-host, Mohammed Hamdy, introduced the topic by apologizing for what he was about to share with his audience. He noted that the Coptic Christian church had condemned the movie, Sadek and Florida pastor Terry Jones, who Girgis wrote backed the movie as well. Jones’ threats to burn Qurans inflamed Muslims in 2010 and 2011.

So apparently Jones was one of the investors in the video.

[Igel]

7. Perhaps later.

But it sat around for months after being shown in the US in English, with no real attempt to dub it or spread it in the ME.

And then it was an Egypt-only affair.

Whatever earlier intentions, it was certainly intentionally pushed to the reporter in Egypt. But was the intent to incite anger in Egypt or to do what the producers said originally, expose Islam and make converts?

However, once that little blurb was in the Coptic Xian newspaper, all bets were off. It went viral in the wrong way. At that point it's fairly clear that the reason was outrage and not understanding. But it's precisely at that point that we stop talking.

And so far there's not a hint that Jones helped fund it. The reports that I've seen put the funding entirely among Copts.

[Spazito]

8. I believe it was to incite anger....

otherwise why be so intent on exporting it. To think he was doing it "to expose Islam and make converts" using this video to do so is naive to say the least, imo.

[Bragi]

4. So who translated the video into Arabic?

The article is good, but doesn't say much on the making of the movie, and who translated it and put it on YouTube. It tracks what happened after the first phone call, but not before. Interesting though.

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. I'd like to know too, who did the translating and the dubbing.

I guess that's part of the earlier production part of the story. Gawker and the LA papers have some stories on that, but nothing that stood out, to me, so far. Sooner or later more pieces of the story will shake loose, I'm sure.

[AntiFascist]

9. Probably some intelligence operative...

Foreign affairs politicos often refer to foreign affairs in terms of "plate tectonics". Setting off a series of small quakes (in this case spread throughout the Muslim world) might relieve pressure on the "main fault" that could otherwise lead to the "Big One". We'll see how this plays out.

[Gin]

10. The article said Sadek translated it

He wanted it to be shown onSept.11

This is more than freedom of speech....IMO he incited a riot..


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/morris-sadek-the-maverick_n_1882931.html

[Bragi]

11. Your opinion is wrong

As has been noted elsewhere in these discussions, the Supreme Court has already rejected the idea that you can riot in opposition to what someone says, and by doing so, thereby limit their right to free speech.

Incitement is when I tell you to go out and riot, not when someone decides to riot because they don't like what I say.

So you're shooting with blanks on the "instigation of rioting" technique as a way of limiting free speech, at least in the US.

I doubt many Americans would have it otherwise. (As a Canadian, I envy the strong First Amendment rights Americans enjoy.)