Bible-burning cleric jailed for 11 years

A Cairo court sentenced an Egyptian Muslim preacher to 11 years imprisonment for blasphemy yesterday for burning a Bible during a protest held last year outside the US embassy in the same city.

Convictions for insulting Islam are common in Egypt – which at present is ruled by Islamists after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 – but they are more rare for cases involving the minority Christian faith.

Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud, known as Abu Islam, who runs his own religious television channel, led a demonstration in September against a US-made anti-Islam video posted on the internet which angered Muslims all over the globe.

His son was sentenced to eight years in jail for the same offence. However, both men will remain at liberty pending appeal ag-ainst conviction.

The video’s depiction of the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and sexual deviant set off violent anti-American protests which left a number of people dead.

The film was later attributed to a Californian born in Egypt’s Coptic Christian community, a group that has expressed concern about the rise of Islamist political power.