[Foundation-l] Wikimania and the Muhammad pix

Wed Feb 20 23:26:08 UTC 2008

Dear all, 
I’m Nada, one of the organizing committee in Egypt, and I'd like to give some comments on the issue brought up here, as I can see some points are misunderstood from some parties.

Firstly, I’d like to clarify why there was that ‘strong’ reaction towards the pictures being published on Wikipedia’s article, it’s just because Prophet Mohamed is considered the most complete human being ever created and that belief exists at the heart of all Muslims. Pictures of him mainly when not even close to reality being drawn by painters ages after he died, is widely rejected among Muslims (Sunni specifically), for example, I have never seen those drawings but on the pages of Wikipedia! And I think that major part of the Egyptian people and Islamic countries will think of the issue in a much different way than you do see, I hope you got what I mean.

Here in Egypt, We shall not be expecting any demonstrations before or even during Wikimania, and we can just assure you that those circumstances won't harm the event activities or personals. What have made me say so is our experiences in previous conferences that may have had much stronger contradictions with Egyptian attitude.

Finally, I would appreciate that we won’t make a big deal of this issue if we’re all looking forward for the success of this conference, I hope this would be resolved in a civilized way on this mailing list that reflects good knowledge about Islamic beliefs and freedom of speech in the same time, which don’t contradict at all with each other if both are understood well.Best Regards,Nada Rady
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