Saturday, March 30, 2013

Muslim Brotherhood tries to scrap Harlem Shake video of its members

Al Arabiya

Egypt’s MB tries to scrap ‘Harlem Shake’ video of members

Sun. March 3, 2013



The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) attempted late Saturday to remove a YouTube video of its members doing the “Harlem Shake.”

The video was made by the MB members wanting to mock the country’s main opposition bloc, the National Salvation Front.

The Brotherhood took it down from the video-sharing site after identifying one of the dancers who was bare-chested.

The dancers in the video were wearing photos of opposition figures as masks, and they performed the dance as a response to a video posted last week in which opposition members did the “Harlem Shake” outside the ruling Islamists’ Cairo headquarters to protest against President Mohamed Mursi’s rule.

Ahmad al-Mogheer, an active member in the Brotherhood’s online communities, confirmed that he was the bare-chested man in the video and that he was asked for it to be deleted it from YouTube.

“A while ago I shot a video, something on the quick. I know it might get people talking about me and it’ll become a headache, but what can I do? I have to go for it,” he tweeted before posting the video.

When the video went live, he posted its link on Twitter, labeling it “the last Salvation’s dance,” in a jeer at the National Salvation Front.

“I’d like to thank everyone who criticized me and everyone who asked me to remove the video,” he tweeted.

Although the video is believed to be removed by the initial YouTube account that posted it, it is still available online after it quickly circulated.

Last week, around 70 protesters, mostly men, performed the dance after chanting slogans against the Islamists, who had propelled Mursi to his election victory last June.

The chaotic pelvis-thrusting dance has been mimicked across the world after a group of Australian teenagers uploaded a video of themselves dancing the “Harlem Shake” in early February.

Youths in Egypt and Tunisia have taken up the dance as a form of protest against Islamists, two years after uprisings in both countries toppled veteran dictators but brought in divisive Islamist-led governments.

A number of social media sites run by Salafis and other Islamist groups have denounced the “Harlem Shake” as indecent, with participants smoking, dancing wildly and simulating sexual acts.

No comments: