In Latitude: Cairo's Walls of Shame

✚ In Cairo, Mixed Feelings About 'Innocence of Muslims' - NYTimes.com

I have a short comment on the IHT blog Latitude. Here's the conclusion:

But the protests also highlighted more important problems. Such as why the police were not able to contain the rioters, or what impact the protests might have on sectarian relations in Egypt: the film’s alleged producer is a Coptic émigré from Egypt. He and several other exiled Egyptians — as well as Terry Jones, the Florida fundamentalist said to have been consulted in the making of the film — face arrest should they come here. (One poor soul, Albier Saber, a Copt, was taken into custody merely for linking to the YouTube trailer on his Facebook account.)

And there’s the matter of the double standard that is created when a sheikh who burned a Bible — rather perplexingly, since Muslims consider it a holy book — is free whereas Christians who insult Islam face immediate backlash.

Even as the anger against America dies down, the underlying tension stirred up by this affair may have ongoing consequences in Egypt — not least because it will boost the case of the Islamists who want to put a ban on blasphemy at the heart of the constitution currently being drafted.