The Salafi Front, the Coalition of Supporting New Muslims, and the Salafi Call's Youth organized a march to protest the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which satirized the Prophet Mohammed. The march, which started at the Istikama Mosque in Giza and ended at the French Embassy on Charles de Gaulle Street, protested drawings that the protestors alleged insulted the prophet Mohammed. The participants called on Muslims everywhere to participate and to take an action against “French abuses.” “The Salafi Front submitted an official statement to security at the French Embassy, ensuring that the march aimed to denounce the official position of the French government which considered the drawings as freedom of expression,” the general coordinator of the Coalition of Supporting New Muslims, Hisham Kamal, told Youm7. Kamal threatened to escalate the situation to target French interests in Egypt, such as a boycott of all French products until there is a firm position regarding respecting their religion's rituals. Participants demanded an official apology immediately. They also demanded that those involved in the publication of the drawings be tried for defamation of religion. They said there should be a serious and official promise that the incident would not be repeated. “You are now exposed. The regimes that were banning us from protecting our religion and that restricted our will are now falling one after another,” one participant said. “You have to respect those people and their religions and fear their anger so as not to regret it.”
