Interviews with Protestors

The first fatality in the Cairo protests occurred Friday.  The 35-year old fruit vendor died from wounds inflicted by rubber bullets while protestors continued to taunt and push against security forces intent on protecting the American Embassy from further trespassing or damages.

Riot police cheer after clearing Tahrir Square of protesters on Saturday
[Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters] (copied from Al Jazeera)

By this morning, more than 360 protestors had been arrested, the crowds dispersed, and traffic is beginning to flow around Tahrir Square.  The Egyptian Interior Ministry says that the arrested protestors will all face charges of "trespassing and damaging public and diplomatic facilities, as well as for assaulting the police and endangering the security and safety of the community."  The report now is that there is an uncertain calm in the area around Tahrir and the American Embassy.

Prior to this mornings dispersement of protestors, Egypt Independent reporter Ali Abdel Mohsen was able to get into the fray and interview several of the protestors, as well as those attempting to prevent them, for this report.  The following are highlights from the article to help those of you watching the news incredulously understand the state of mind of the Egyptian protestors which may or may not be similar to those in other regions experiencing similar strife.

"At this very moment, Americans are piling into movie theaters, cheering through their popcorn at the notion of the Islamic prophet as a goat-romancing child molester, and sending 'The Innocence of Muslims' to the top of the box office charts. It’s an evil that must be stopped at all costs, or at least, before the film is released in European cinemas,” urges Ahmed Ibrahim, 23 years.

He is also mad at the security forces because they "prevented the Islamic population from defending their honor; but, worse yet, chosen to align themselves with the American pigs, rather than remain loyal to their own religion."

Reporter Mohsen comments, "like most protesters at the scene, Ibrahim believes “The Innocence of Muslims” is a Hollywood production that, like any local or international film released in Egypt, and presumably elsewhere, passes through several rounds of censorship and receives official state approval from its own government before seeing the light of day."

Attempting to reason with the protestors, the protestors turned on the Egypt Independent team:

"'What do you mean ‘smart’ course of action?' one protestor roars at Egypt Independent’s suggestion. 'The film has already been made; it exists. Our only course of action is war, because this was an act of war.  This is our prophet, our religion. Or are you not Muslim?' he challenged.

'We want a formal apology from [US President Barack] Obama, we want the filmmakers executed, and we want all copies of the film destroyed,” another protestor cut in. “All those tapes must be burned.'”

The Muslim Brotherhood attempted to encourage and organize protestors away from the Embassy and Tahrir Square, but some protestors stated that at their Mosque they heard their "Imam vow, 'vanquish the cross-carrying armies as we have before,' a reference to the Crusades which was met with much cheering. No sooner had prayers ended than the crowd pulled together and announced it was heading to the embassy."

According to the article, one protest sign read in English,  “If America says they understand freedom of expression, they must be coooooool with us.”

..."a few individuals attempted to dissuade them from continuing to the walled-in embassy, but to little avail. 'You’re going to set fire to more police cars?' an older man shouted from his spot on the sidewalk. 'Who do you think ends up paying for those cars? The Egyptian people can’t even afford to eat, but they’re burning their country down. I hope the Prophet had a sense of humor!' The procession paid him no attention"...

...“'You try to talk sense to these people, and you’re likely to get hurt,' fumes Tarek Farouk, a 27-year-old and one of the few maintaining a frontline of their own, one that separates the crowds in Tahrir from the ones throwing rocks and chunks of glass and metal over the wall and at security forces. Desperate to end the violence, Farouk and his colleagues have tried pleading with, and physically preventing, people from crossing over to confront the state security forces, but it’s a losing battle.

'What do these people know of the prophet?' sighs Farouk.

To his left, his colleague asks, 'What prophet? You think any of these people care about religion?' He turned to Egypt Independent and added, 'You’d think these were the most pious people on Earth, but we were here for dawn prayers and we can tell you not a single one of them stopped throwing rocks long enough to pray.'"...

..."The crowd erupts shortly afterwards, its attention drawn to the two foreign men being quickly escorted from the scene by a small group of Egyptians. One of the men has had his green t-shirt torn; his left shoulder and part of his chest are exposed. Within seconds, hundreds of protestors have descended upon them, some laughing, others clearly enraged, thumping the foreigners on the head, piling on top of them and trying to wrestle them to the ground while bystanders shout for help and the prevalence of common sense. 'You’re beating random foreigners, you dogs!' one woman in a burqa sceams. For several moments, the foreigner men are completely obscured by a flurry of fists and bodies, until enough individuals come to their aid and manage to extract them from the cluster. The small group escapes and is chased out of sight, with those left behind clearly struggling to come to terms with what they had just witnessed. One woman breaks down into tears, men mutter in disbelief, and an adolescent admonishes nobody in particular, shouting, 'I know those men — one is Italian, the other is Dutch. They have nothing to do with this, they’re not even Americans.'

'So what if they were?' one older man bursts, before repeating the question again at a louder volume. 'Have we all gone crazy?'"...

Continue to pray for peace...