Senior member and spokesperson of the Al-Nour Salafi party, Nader Bakkar, confirmed to the Daily News Egypt today he had filed a report with the public prosecutor. “It is a request to revoke the nationality of any Egyptian proven to have insulted any of the prophets, not just prophet Muhammad” he said.
The report comes at a turbulent time; right after an anti-Islamic movie, whose production is allegedly tied with Egyptian Copts living in the United States, was released earlier this week. The movie, which is seen as an insult to the prophet Muhammad, has caused protests across the Middle East. People have demonstrated in front of the US embassies in several countries including Egypt and Yemen, while protesters in Libya killed the US ambassador John Christopher Stevens and four staff members of the embassy in attacks on the Benghazi consulate on Tuesday night.
“Revoking the citizenship of a person who insults the prophet or anything else for the matter is not right. Anyone who insults [someone or something] should be tried and punished” said Mohammed Zare’, a human rights lawyer, member of the National Council for Human Rights, and Head of the Arab Organization for Penal Reform.
Zare’ added creating such a law largely depends on what is considered as “insulting.”
“Defining what constitutes as insults can vary from one person to the other” he said. “It is better that anyone who insults the prophet or insults religions, which does happen, get punished based on a penal code but revoking the nationality is not right.”
