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“While Egyptian protesters battled security forces outside the US embassy on Thursday morning, another standoff was taking place — in cyberspace,” Al-Ahram reports:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s official English-language Twitter account @Ikwanweb reposted a message from the group’s deputy head, Khairat El-Shater, saying he was “relieved none of @USembassycairo staff was hurt” and expressing his hope that US-Egypt relations could weather the events.
This reconciliatory tweet, however, was posted while the Brotherhood’s Arabic-language Twitter account and its official website were both praising the protests….and calling for a million man march on Friday. An Arabic language article on the Brotherhood’s site sported the headline ‘Egyptians rise to defend the Prophet’.
Noting the contradiction, the US Embassy in Cairo tweeted a tart response from its own account: “Thanks. By the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those too.”
Several ‘revolutionary’ groups and parties plan to support Friday’s protests in Cairo, the Project for Middle East Democracy reports, noting that Tagammu, Karama, and the Free Egyptians parties have announced that they will not participate.
The Project for Middle East Democracy is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.
