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At one point, an argument erupted between group members and Judge Edward Ghaleb, who serves as both head of the Coptic Church's lay council and head of the Constituent Assembly's rights and freedoms committee. According to Ghaleb, the group's grievances are of an "individual" nature, while the constitution is meant to address general principles. He added that the assembly would look into Coptic grievances, but stressed that the new charter was being written "for all Egyptians."

some members of Egypt's sometimes-raucous, often rumor-heavy media have been playing highly offensive clips from the highly offensive film, stressing its U.S. and Coptic connections

an American-Coptic plot

it appears to compare Mohammed to a goat and Muslims, according to one translation, to "child-lovers."

The movie, like Terry Jones himself and his earlier Koran-burning stunt, have received attention far beyond their reach, which would be modest if not for obsessively outraged media. And yet, here the movie is, not just offending apparently significant numbers of people, but producing real-world damage. That damage is apparently limited to one American flag (CNN at one point reported that it had been torn, rumors continue to circulate that it was burned) and presumably the evenings of the U.S. embassy staff, but the U.S.-Egypt relationship is tense enough, and Muslim-Coptic mistrust has already produced scant but horrifying violence against the Christian minority. That doesn't mean this incident will become anything more than a bizarre moment of cross-cultural misunderstanding (the protesters seem to assume that, as in Egypt, movies must secure the state's approval), but that it could go so far is yet another reminder of the tensions jsut beneath the surface in Egypt.