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7 - 13 November 2002 Issue No. 611 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Pre-emptive protests
Nearly 150 people, mostly American Jews, held a demonstration in front of the Egyptian Embassy in the US capital to protest a television series which they dubbed "anti-Semitic". Khaled Dawoud reports from Washington
A small demonstration was held in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Washington DC on Monday to protest Fares Bela Gawad (Horseman Without a Horse), a TV series which began airing yesterday and will run through most of Ramadan.
The nearly 150 protesters -- mostly American Jews -- said the series was based on the controversial "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". Raising small posters that read "Stand Against Hate", the protesters described the book and series as "anti-Semitic".
A letter addressed to President Hosni Mubarak and signed by Congressmen Henry Waxman and Benjamin Gilman (both members of the Democratic Party) said the book was "a fictitious conspiracy theory fabricated by the secret police of Russian Czar Nicholas II. The letter, co-signed by 44 other Congressmen, added, "considering that Adolf Hitler used the Protocols to help justify his attempt to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust," it was, "shocking" that Egyptian officials emphasised that "the series does not contain anything which might be considered anti- Semitic."
The number of protesters who actually gathered in front of the embassy was considerably fewer than that originally anticipated by the organisers. All of those interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly admitted that they had not read the script of the TV series, and had depended mainly on a front-page story published last week by The New York Times, for their information. Nevertheless, they asked President Mubarak to intervene and immediately ban the series.
"We are hoping the series never sees the light of day," said Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, one of the protest's main speakers. Weinblatt said that holding a protest before the series was even aired was not unusual, "and what we are doing now is similar to what several other Islamic groups did when they protested certain movies produced by Hollywood before their release because they knew that their content offended Islam or Prophet Mohamed."
The US government has also raised the issue of the series with top Egyptian officials. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on 31 October that "we are following the issue closely, and will continue to remain engaged with Egyptian officials." Egypt's ambassador to Washington, Nabil Fahmy, met with several State Department officials, Congressmen and editors of The New York Times to explain the Egyptian point of view.
Hisham El-Naqib, the head of the Egyptian Press and Information Office in Washington, said he was "shocked and surprised about how these protesters were issuing value judgments even before the series was aired." He added that "as a matter of principle, asking us (the Egyptian government) to intervene and ban a certain show is unacceptable, because this is definitely against freedom of expression." He added that "we also reject the notion that airing the series on national television reflects a certain stand by the state. Productions on national and private television stations in Egypt reflect the creativity of those who produce the work and their views on how the Arab people feel and aspire to."
The protest against the series comes in the midst of an intense, wide-ranging campaign against the Egyptian and Arab press by pro-Israel and American- Jewish groups, who claim that publishing what they describe as anti-Semitic propaganda violates the 1979 Camp David agreement signed by Egypt and Israel.
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