Joseph Nassralla was the Coptic Christian at the center of the incident during SIOA’s rally against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. His statement on the incident is here. And now here is a statement from another Coptic Christian — the man who invited him to the rally:
My name is Pastor Sami Masry. I have known Brother Joseph Nassralla since 2008 and I’m the one who invited Mr. Nassralla to cover the Rally at NYC Ground Zero. He is a well-meaning person and he came to the rally to do the coverage of the event. Unfortunately he brought with him a person who just came from Egypt and was not familiar with the way of protesting in the US. His name is Karam El-Masry.
They came late to the rally about 2pm. Once they had set up their gear, Brother Joseph gave the microphone to Karam El-Masry. Karam gave me his notebook to hold and he started the show by speaking to his Arabic viewers. Mr. El-Masry’s tone of voice started to rise until it sounded like protesting and shouting very loudly, which drew a large crowd.
Then Karam started to speak in English and began to preach to the audience in a shouting voice. He said to them, “I need to teach you about Islam. They will take your home build the Mosque on your property if you like it on not etc.”
All the protesters were very calm until Karam started to bring attention to himself and he took over the show. I do not think that he intended to steal the show. Any person just arriving to the scene or passersby that hear, “they will take your land, rape your women etc.” will think for sure that this is Islamic group that came to disrupt the rally because of Mr. Karam’s very loud voice.
The crowed exclaimed, “No,” and that is normal reaction to call that Mr. Karam’s speech had given.
NYC Police acted very professionally by isolating them from the crowd by calming both Karam and Joseph down. Finally, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer had nothing to do with what happened and the American people cannot be blamed for saying “No,” that they do not want their women to be raped or country to be take over.
Since I have invited Mr. Nassralla to attend the rally I take full responsibility for his action and Karam El-Masry’s action. If anyone has any concerns or questions please do not direct them to Pamela Geller or Robert Spencer, they had nothing to do with what happened. I will be glad to answer your concerns. However, this statement should clarify the entire issue.
Finally the media wrote that only 300 people attended NYC No Mosques at Ground Zero rally. However, I would like do a correction for them. I was able to give out thousands of flyers “No Mosques at Ground Zero” to thousands of people who attended the rally. I wish the American media be truthful when reporting facts.
Blessings
Rev. Sami Masry