A picture of Mickey Mouse with long beard and Minnie with a full-face veil posted on businessman Naguib Sawiris’ Twitter account has enraged Muslims and prompted 15 lawyers to file a lawsuit against him for blasphemy and insulting Islam.

The Christian Copt telecommunications mogul, who has emerged as a provocative voice in post-revolutionary Egypt, apologized on Twitter, saying that he meant the picture to be humorous, not an affront to the country's majority population of Muslims. "I apologize for those who don’t take this as a joke. I just thought it was a funny picture no disrespect meant! I’m sorry,” the magnate tweeted.

Nonetheless, Sawiris’ apology wasn’t enough to halt the fury and criticism from many Muslims, especially the ultraconservative Salafis, whose lawyers have already sued the billionaire. A Facebook group launched under the name “we are also joking, Sawiris” gathered no less than 90,000 members in recent days, calling for boycotting products or services sold by any of the businessman’s companies, especially the Mobinil mobile phone company.  

Dressed in black, they came by the tens of thousands from near and far, pouring into the streets of southern Tehran and massing at the Khomeini Mausoleum to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic on Saturday.

“I’ve walked almost 24 hours from the holy city of Qom to get here,” a 36-year-old cleric and father of two, who had walked barefoot to the capital to pay his respects, told the Times. “I am a pilgrim of the late great Khomeini's holy shrine. I am ready to sacrifice myself and my family for sake of the revolution and the current supreme leader.”

The ceremony, an annual event, was marked by tight security and attended by a number of high-ranking Iranian political and military officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Khomenei’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who called for unity among ruling conservatives and rapprochement among rival political factions in a speech he delivered at the shrine. It was his second major call in the last 10 days to heal the rifts between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei’s own conservative political allies.

"In the country there are different political views," he was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

After heartily hailing popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been unenthusiastic about the wave of anti-government protests in Syria, the Shiite militant group's close ally. 

In a speech late Wednesday, Nasrallah threw his full support behind the Syrian regime and denounced international sanctions slapped on Syria for an ongoing brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators that human rights  activists say has left more than 1,000 people dead.

Speaking via video link before a large crowd of supporters in a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese Bekka valley marking the 11th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from south Lebanon, Nasrallah called on Syrians to stand by the regime led by president Bashar Assad and urged them to give the Syrian leadership a chance.

"We call on all Syrians to preserve their country as well as the ruling regime, a regime of resistance, and to give their leaders a chance to cooperate with all Syria's communities in order to implement the necessary reforms," he was quoted as saying in media reports.

The Kuwaiti parliament became a scene of chaos Wednesday when a fistfight broke out between Shiite and Sunni Muslim lawmakers during a session about Kuwaiti detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The brawl began after Shiite lawmaker Hussein Kallaf denounced a number of Kuwaiti detainees held at Guantanamo as Al Qaeda militants, according to local media reports.

Sunni lawmakers immediately fired back, with Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Jamaan Harbash telling Kallaf that the aim of the debate was not to discuss Al Qaeda but Guantanamo detainees. 

Tumult then broke out, and fists began to fly among the lawmakers, prompting security guards to try to break up the fight. The pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya reported that several lawmakers were involved in the brawl; other media reports said it involved two Sunni and two Shiite lawmakers.

Iranian courts have delaying the punishment of a man who was sentenced to blinding by acid for his attack on a woman seven years ago.

Majid Movahedi, then 21, poured more than a gallon of sulfuric acid on Ameneh Bahrami in 2004 after she rejected his offer of marriage. 

Bahrami, who was a successful and ambitious engineer in Tehran, now lives in Spain where she has been undergoing a series of surgeries.

Movahedi, after Bahrami's relentless efforts to seek justice, went on trial in 2008 and was given the rare sentence of blinding. He was to have been placed under anesthesia and blinded at the Tehran prison where he is being held.

Egyptian riot police fired tear gas and live ammunition at several hundred protesters gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in the Cairo suburb of Giza late Sunday.

At least two dozen protesters were injured, a health ministry official told Egyptian state television. A security official told the Associated Press that one of the injured was in critical condition Sunday.

The protest followed calls on Facebook for a march on Israel on Sunday in solidarity with Palestinians marking Nakba Day, the anniversary of the displacement of Palestinians with the founding of Israel in 1948.

Clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians that left a dozen people dead last week have led the Egyptian government to consider new regulations criminalizing sectarian violence.

A new committee will consider laws banning protests outside places of worship and prohibiting the use of religious slogans by political parties, as well as forming a unified law for building houses of worship, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Egyptian ministers' Cabinet.

Coptic Christians, about 10% of Egypt’s population of 80 million, have long complained that the Egyptian government forces them to overcome onerous bureaucratic red tape in order to build new churches, while Muslim counterparts have no difficulty constructing new mosques. 

Timeline: Revolution in Egypt

Tensions soared in Egypt on Saturday when several thousand conservative, or Salafi, Muslims rioted around a church in Giza, about 12 miles southwest of the capital, following allegations that a female Muslim convert was being held there against her will by Coptic priests.

Copts gathered around the church to prevent Muslims from entering. The confrontation that seemed inevitable was soon triggered as bullets and Molotov cocktails began flying.

More than 240 people were injured and a nearby church was torched.

The woman in question, Abeer Talaat Fakhry, broke her silence and spoke to Egyptian and Arab media on Monday, confirming that she converted to Islam last September and was abducted and held inside the Coptic church. She said she managed to escape amid Saturday’s violence.

While her story was disputed by a Giza priest, local news site Dostor.org published a purported copy of a certificate proving her conversion.

A number of Islamic clerics have argued that Fakhry converted to divorce her Coptic husband and marry a Muslim. Coptic Christians in Egypt cannot obtain a civil divorce.

Egyptian military authorities have detained more than 200 suspects in connection with Saturday’s violence, including a Salafi cleric accused of inciting hatred against Copts in a video streamed online before clashes erupted.

A fact-finding panel appointed by the National Council for Human Rights said Wednesday that "groups that can be described as thugs" and might be related to the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak may have played a role in igniting Saturday's clashes in order to disrupt Egypt's post-revolution progress.

Hundreds of Copts have been protesting outside Egyptian state TV headquarters in Cairo since Sunday, calling for the swift capture and trial of those responsible for the clashes and demanding better protection in their homeland.

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Timeline: Revolution in Egypt

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Photo: A church burns during Saturday's clashes in Giza. Credit. Ben Curtis / Associated Press

The head of Cairo's Al Azhar institution, the most influential seat of Sunni Muslim learning, said that the burial of Osama bin Laden at sea was a violation of Islamic tradition.

The action “runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs," Sheik Ahmed Tayeb was quoted as saying by Associated Press.

The customary Muslim practice is to place the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Sea burials are permitted only when death occurs on a ship, and the body cannot be quickly brought to shore, religious scholars said.

U.S. officials said a burial at sea was chosen after Bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan because no country would accept the remains. They said Muslim tradition was followed, with the body washed, wrapped in a white sheet and buried within 24 hours.

— Alexandra Zavis

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A racy allusion in a Friday prayer sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati has become the talk of Iran.

He invoked a well-known poem about an intimate coupling between a maidservant and a donkey to issue a warning to opposition supporters.

"The foe always try to use psychological warfare against the Islamic regime to tarnish the image of the system inside and outside the country," he said (Persian link). "Therefore, I tell them, the enemies, to go and study the story of the pumpkin."

The "pumpkin" refers to a famous story by the 13th century mystical poet Rumi, "The Importance of Gourdcrafting," in which a resourceful maidservant who sleeps with a donkey uses a pumpkin as a marital aid.

When the lady of the house catches on, she decides to follow suit. But rather than consulting the maidservant she sends her away without obtaining the secret of the pumpkin, and is killed by the donkey.

The story is intended as a parable about the dangers of immoderation. At the end of the poem, the maidservant returns and chides the dead woman for her arrogance. "You opened your shop before a master taught you the craft," the poem reads.

Jannati's message to the opposition seems to be "Don't take on more than you can handle."

-- Los Angeles Times

Hours after an Islamist extremist group announced it had kidnapped an Italian peace activist in the Gaza Strip, the man's body was discovered in the restive seaside territory. It was the first kidnapping of a Westerner in four years and one of the few times such an abduction has ended fatally.

The hostage, Vittorio Arrigoni, a pro-Palestinian activist for the advocacy group the International Solidarity Movement, had appeared blindfolded in an Internet video released by the Tawhid and Jihad group, which threatened to kill him unless its imprisoned leader and two other members of radical groups were freed by Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza.

The group set a deadline of Friday evening, but Arrigoni’s body was found by Hamas police well short of that, Hamas officials said. They said they had arrested two suspects and were searching for a third. Hamas said it "condemns the heinous crime that does not reflect our values, our religion or our custom and tradition," according to an Interior Ministry statement released to Palestinian news media.

But the kidnapping raised questions about Hamas' control over Gaza, and it represents the latest example of how smaller, more radical groups in the territory -– some with alleged ties to Al Qaeda -– are challenging the rule of Hamas, which itself is viewed by Israel and the United States as a terrorist organization.Those groups complain that Hamas has become too moderate.

Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, has been cracking down on Islamist Salafists over the last 18 months, arresting their members and killing one of their spiritual leaders during an armed clash in August 2009.

Gaza residents said Arrigoni arrived in 2009 aboard a ship challenging the Israeli naval blockade after the 2008-09 Israeli offensive in Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. His abduction was the first of a foreigner since Hamas took control of the territory. The last foreigner kidnapped here was BBC reporter Alan Johnston, who was abducted in March 2007 and released three months later.

-- Ahmed Aldabba in Gaza City

Tunisians are optimistic about the future of their country but remain concerned about the economy and deeply divided on the role religion should play in politics, a new poll finds.

The study, commissioned by the Washington-based International Republican Institute, claims to be the first independent opinion poll since the fall of former President Zine el Abidine ben Ali. It comes at a critical juncture for Tunisia.

On July 24, Tunisians are expected to vote for a national assembly that will be responsible for rewriting the constitution and determining crucial elements of the political system, such as the distribution of powers within the government and whether to legally separate matters of religion and state.

According to the poll, 79% of respondents said Tunisia is going in the right direction, despite the fact that 66% categorized the economy as somewhat or very bad. Job creation topped the list of priorities respondents said the interim government should be pursuing, followed by free and fair elections and stimulation of the economy.

However, respondents were sharply divided on the role religion should play in politics, with 48% saying they were in favor of a political system based on religion and 44% preferring a secular system. Among those, 27% said they felt the Tunisian political system should be "strongly" secular and 21% said it should be "strongly" based on religion. Urban respondents were more likely than their rural counterparts to support a secular system, as were younger respondents over older ones.

The poll's results appear to strengthen comparisons between Tunisia and Turkey, which has achieved mixed results with its attempts to blend a secular political system with the Islamic values shared by many Turks.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: A wave of popular protests driven partially by economic woes forced former President Zine el Abidine ben Ali from power earlier this year. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Kuwait is reportedly ready to boot out a number of Iranian diplomats for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran in the latest spat in ties between Sunni Arab Gulf states and Shiite Iran.

According to Kuwait's foreign minister Mohammed Sabah, a number of Iranian diplomats are to be expelled for alleged spying that reportedly dates back to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"There will be action against a group of Iranian diplomats.... They will be considered persona non grata and expelled from Kuwait," he was quoted as telling reporters in Kuwait on Thursday.

Tehran slammed the claims as baseless, and Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the Islamic republic was not meddling in Kuwaiti affairs, according to Iranian state media.

Arab Gulf media reports say that Kuwait has recalled its ambassador to Iran for consultations.

Ties between Arab Gulf countries and Iran appear to becoming increasingly strained since the wave of Arab protests reached Iran's Shiite neighbor Bahrain where the Sunni government's security forces crushed the mainly Shiite-led protest movement last month.

The crisis in Bahrain quickly transformed into a regional standoff between Sunni Gulf Arab states and Shiite Iran with both sides throwing accusations at each other.

Authorities in Bahrain have accused Iran of meddling in its affairs, and some Sunni monarchies have sent troops to Bahrain, a move that has drawn stark criticism from Iran.

On Thursday, an Iranian parliamentary panel warned Riyadh that it was "playing with fire" by contributing troops to the joint military force in Bahrain.

The kingdom fired back, urging Iran to mind its own business and to not interfere in the affairs of Gulf states. A Saudi government official called the statement "irresponsible" and condemned it "in the most strongest words," reported the state-run Saudi news agency SPA on Friday.

News about Kuwait planning to oust Iranian diplomats came two days after a Kuwait City court sentenced two Iranian nationals and a Kuwaiti to death for spying for Tehran. All three had served in Kuwait's army at the time of their arrest in 2010. Sabah alleged that the Iranian diplomats were connected to the spy ring.

A Syrian national and a stateless Arab were given life terms at the conclusion of the trial while two Iranians were acquitted.

Salehi dismissed the allegations by Kuwaiti court, saying the death sentence rulings were part of a "plot," reported Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency.

"Focusing on an outdated issue by a Kuwaiti court and attributing it to the Islamic Republic of Iran is a plot being pursued by those who are jealous of Iran's good and friendly relations with Kuwait," Fars quoted Salehi as saying.  

The court heard charges that the spy ring had given secret military information and taken photographs of military sites in Kuwait and spied for the Islamic Republic.

Local media said the men confessed to having taken pictures of Kuwaiti and U.S. military sites for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard, but the defendants reportedly denied the charges in court and stressed they were tortured to confess, according to Agence France-Presse.

Oil-rich Kuwait has a sizaeble Shiite population.

-- Alexandra Sandels in Beirut

Photo: Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed Sabah. Credit: Agence France-Presse