A message on a Web site linked to al-Qaeda has threatened death to the veteran Egyptian actor Omar Sharif after he played St. Peter in an Italian TV film.
In remarks widely reported in Italy earlier this month, the 73- year old actor, a convert to Islam, said he had "seemed to hear voices" during the filming of St. Peter, a two-part mini-series shown last week.
Sharif was quoted as saying: "Playing Peter was so important for me that even now I can only speak about it with difficulty. It will be difficult for me to play other roles from now on."
The Italian news agency, Adnkronos International said that a message on a Web forum used in the past by al-Qaeda had a link to a site carrying the threat.
"Omar Sharif has stated that he has embraced the crusader idolatry," it said. "He is a crusader who is offending Islam and Muslims and receiving applause from the Italian people. I give you this advice, brothers, you must kill him."
Adnkronos International, which has strong links with the Middle East, closely monitors Arabic language media.
The agency said other messages posted to the site had protested at the appeal.
The actor, who was named Michael Chalhoub, was brought up a Christian. He converted to Islam in the 1950s after marrying the Egyptian film diva Faten Hamama. They divorced after two decades.
Sharif shot to international stardom as Sherif Ali Ibn el-Kharish in David Lean's 1962 desert epic, Lawrence of Arabia. But he has repeatedly upset fans in the Muslim world. In 1968, with memories of the six-day war with Israel fresh in Arab minds, he caused a furore by kissing a Jewish woman, Barbra Streisand, in the movie Funny Girl.
His films were banned in Egypt as a result.
In 2003 he stirred controversy playing a Muslim shopkeeper who befriends a Jewish teenager in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran. Interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corp earlier this year, Sharif said: "I believe in everything and in nothing ... the first thing I was taught ... at catechism was that God is justice and I don't see justice in the world."
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS