CAIRO - An Internet campaign to keep the lid on sectarian tensions and bring Egypt's Muslims and Christians closer together is gathering momentum and attracting supporters across the nation. The campaign, masterminded by Amr Khaled, by far Egypt's most famous Muslim preacher who focuses in his activities on juniors and young Muslims, seeks to put an end to inflammatory and sectarian comments on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter with the aim of creating a new culture of affinity between Egypt's majority Muslims and Christians who make up 10 per cent of the 80 million population. “I totally agree with Sheikh Amr Khaled,” said Bassem Mourad, an Egyptian Christian and an active user of the Internet. “Muslims do not need to demean their Christian compatriots. Neither do Christians need to demean their Muslim compatriots,” he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Khaled hopes to attract two million Egyptian Internet users to his campaign. He will seek to convince these users to put the logo of his campaign instead of their profile pictures. The shape of the campaign logo has not been determined yet, but Internet users expect it to contain a reference to both Islam and Christianity and the need for coexistence. “When two million people join the campaign, we will seek to show this to the world,” Khaled said of his campaign. “This does not even happen in advanced countries,” he added in statements to the media. Khaled's campaign comes hard upon the heels of a deadly terrorist bombing outside a church in Alexandria that claimed the lives of 23 Copts, who had just finished a New Year Mass. The bombing revived in Egyptian memory the bloody days of terrorism in the 1990s when terrorists targeted tourist facilities and policemen. “The Internet can really make tremendous change in our lives,” said Sara Sherif, a Muslim translation student. “But some people use it in a negative manner. I think the campaign will alter this,” he added. There are around 17 million Internet users in Egypt, according to the Internet World Stats. Most of them are members of social networking websites, which have turned into a political campaigning tool in this country. In launching his new campaign, some people say, Khaled will be trading a thin line between the objectives of his campaign and misconception in government offices. The 43-year-old preacher angered the Government years ago when he managed to lure millions of Egyptian youth, including the sons and the daughters of governmental officials, to his sermons in many of the nation's mosques. He was reported to have been compelled to leave Egypt for the UK when some State agencies tightened the noose on his conferences and his appearance on TV. That was why he was keen to say that he did not have a hidden agenda behind his campaign.
