The peaceful adherents of the Religion of Peace once again demonstrate their commitment to honest debate and open discussion. "Report: Maker of anti-Islamic film 'Innocence of Muslims' goes into hiding," from NBC News, September 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A California-based property developer who claims to be responsible for “Innocence of Muslims,” a provocative film about the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked Tuesday’s deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Libya and further protests in Egypt, has gone into hiding, The Associated Press reported.Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, Israeli-American writer and director Sam Bacile, 56, remained defiant, saying that he intended his film to be a political statement condemning the religion, the AP said.
"Islam is a cancer, period," the AP quoted him as repeatedly saying.
An English-language 13-minute trailer on YouTube shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad.
Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.
The Wall Street Journal reported the film had been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots in Pakistan and other Muslim nations.
Mock trial
A statement on the pastor’s political website, posted late Tuesday, said it would be re-broadcasting the trailer for the film as part of a day-long ‘International Judge Mohammad Day’ in which it subjected the Muslim prophet to a mock trial for “promoting murder, rape, and destruction of people and property through his writings called the Koran.”The statement said of Bacile’s film: “It is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.”
Although it was posted to YouTube in 2011, the film only attracted attention in the Middle East after an unknown contributor dubbed it into Egyptian Arabic. That translation, which Bacile told the AP was accurate, has been broadcast repeatedly on Egyptian media in recent weeks after being seized upon by extreme Islamists who dislike the presence of the country’s Coptic Christians.
Film news site The Wrap said the Arabic-dubbed version had garnered more than 40,000 views by Tuesday afternoon. However, that clip appeared to have been taken down on Wednesday.
“This is an obscure film, amateurish, it’s a YouTube film that would have passed by without comment if it had not been picked up and commented on in Egypt,” NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel told MSNBC on Wednesday....
It is obscure indeed. I had never heard of it before this. How did the Egyptians find out about it? Obviously it was found and used as a pretext.
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I thought the movie was kinda... cute.