By: E&P Staff The Egyptian information ministry has banned editions of two European newspapers because of articles the government deemed insulting of Islam, according to published reports.
Reuters reports that editions of the French paper Le Figaro and Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, will not be allowed to enter the country.
"They published articles which disparaged Islam and claimed that the Islamic religion was spread by the sword and that the Prophet ... was the prophet of evil," the official decree is quoted as saying.
The move comes in response to a Sept. 19 opinion piece in Le Figaro about Islam and the Prophet Mohammad by Robert Redeker, a French philosopher and high school teacher.
"Merciless warrior, pillager, murderer of Jews and polygamist -- that is how Mohammad portrays himself in the Koran ... Hatred and violence live in the book by which every Muslim is educated, the Koran," Redeker wrote in the piece.
In the Sept. 16 edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German historian Egon Flaig looks the Prophet Mohammad 's military leadership and presents arguments supporting the idea that the religion has had a violent history.
The move is unusual, according to Reuters, because the Egyptian government rarely bans foreign media.
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