Coptic leaders frustrated
Anti-muslim movie was made by fringe members of group
LOS ANGELES — The anti-Islamic movie trailer inflaming the Muslim world opens with Muslims ransacking a Christian medical clinic and then segues into a flashback of Muhammad’s life. “Set the place on fire! We’ll burn out these forsaken Christians!” cries one Muslim character.
The opening scene from Innocence of Muslims, although crude, resonates with some Egyptian Christians, who have suffered years of persecution and attacks by Islamic militants and fear more of it with new fundamentalist leaders in power in Egypt.
The 14-minute trailer on YouTube enraged Muslims worldwide with its depiction of Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester. Most Egyptian Christians in the U.S. have rejected the movie and say the man and the non-profit tied to the film are fringe players who are not well-known in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
A tiny minority of U.S. Copts, however, have used their adopted nation’s free- speech protections to speak out against Islam in a way that would not be tolerated in their native Egypt. The few who engage in this antiMuslim, evangelical activism — including those behind the movie trailer — are fuelled by that history, said Eliot Dickinson, an associate professor of political science at Western Oregon University who has written a book on U.S. Copts.
“Whoever made this film is such an outlier in their community that it’s completely unrepresentative,” Dickinson said. “But what it does is, it taps into this frustration of always being persecuted back in Egypt and let’s not downplay that. To be a Copt in Egypt now is a very, very difficult life because, especially after the Arab Spring, it’s open season.”
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, is the man federal authorities have said is behind the film, though he has only acknowledged publicly that he was involved in management and logistics. He has a criminal record that includes drug and cheque fraud convictions and has been in hiding since leaving his suburban Los Angeles home last weekend.
Media for Christ was listed as the production company for the film and its headquarters was where most of the movie was made. Its president is Joseph Abdelmasih, an outspoken critic of Muslims who also has gone into hiding. Steve Klein, a California insurance agent who has dedicated his life to warning the world about Muslim extremism, has said he was a consultant and promoter of the film.
Nakoula and Abdelmasih are followers of a U.S. Coptic priest named Zakaria Botros Henein, who has not been linked to the film but owns a home in Orange County, Calif., and has been called Islam’s Public Enemy No. 1 for his teachings disparaging the faith.
A man who answered the phone at a listing for Henein in Huntington Beach, Calif., hung up on a reporter.
Henein left the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles a decade ago and has no connection to it, said Bishop Serapion, the church leader for Southern California and Hawaii. “We don’t know about what he is doing, we are not responsible (for him), even we don’t even know where he is,” Serapion said.
Coptic leaders said they were unaware of Nakoula until the trailer surfaced. Media for Christ, which raised more than $1 million last year, is known but not embraced by Coptic leaders.
Magdy Azer, president of the California Coptic Assembly, called the charity a “fanatic” group and said its program, called The Way TV, is full of anti-Islamist preaching and pleas for donations.