During past few days, an anti-Muslim film circulating in the internet has sparked grave demonstrations across the Muslim countries, from Libya to Egypt, Yemen to Afghanistan and several other countries. Protestors went violent in some countries and clashed with security force which caused financial and humanitarian losses.
In Benghazi, once the stronghold of anti-Moammar Gaddafi, the former President of Libya, people armed with grenade and light weapons attacked the embassy of US and killed Mr. Ambassador and three other American diplomats.
Similar attacks were made in Yemen and Egypt on US embassies and in Sudan on German and UK embassies but diplomats were not harmed. NATO officials in Afghanistan previously warned their security forces to be vigilant about possible revengeful attacks. It was estimated that people in several big cities embark to large demonstrations and go violent, particularly on Friday after Friday prayer when religious scholars spark people with their harsh oppositions and inflammatory rhetoric.
However, people in the eastern parts of the country held demonstration but ended peacefully. Perhaps, it was due to unavailability of the movie. The film has remained out of reach and demonstrators in Afghanistan have not watched it.
After violence in Benghazi, the YouTube was banned in Afghanistan aimed to prevent possible large and violent demonstrations. However other social networking sites like facebook, twitter and etc remained available and people were posting photos of who is said to be person who made the film and also sharing inflammatory remarks.
Security forces were on alarm on Friday to take all due measures to prevent violent demonstrations. The film is not released publically yet and according to reports it was loaded on YouTube. The composer of the film is also not known. Previously it was said that and Israeli-American by the name of Sam Bacile has made the film which worried American Jews. But later on, another person named Nakoula Basseley, an Egyptian Coptic Christian is the filmmaker.
A woman assisted partly with the film openly said that she did not know it was against Islam. She has said that she was told that film is about 2000 old lifestyles in Egypt. Additionally, according to cinema and film critics, the film is not of high quality. It has serious defects which does not have artistic value.
The controversies bout the movie may go on for quite some time but airing such movies is really a very irresponsible step and it should be shunned as much as possible.