One Lebanese official wants to throw cold water on that country’s new version of the Ice Bucket Challenge, in which youths post videos of themselves lighting the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on fire.
The so-called #BurnISISFlagChallenge began last weekend in Beirut, where three young Lebanese men filmed themselves burning the extremists’ flag and encouraged others to follow suit. The flag-burning went viral from there.
But Lebanon’s justice minister, Ashraf Rifi, called for the young men to be prosecuted for the flag-burning because he said the religious slogan “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his Prophet” is written on the extremist group’s flag.
Burning the flag was “an insult to the religious slogans of the Abrahamic faiths, and could stir up sectarian conflicts,” Rifi said, as quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat, an international Arabic newspaper. Both those acts are illegal under Lebanese law.
Many other Lebanese officials came out in support of the challenge, however. One even stepped forward to say that he’d represent the young men accused of flag-burning if they got into any legal trouble, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Watch a #BurnISISFlagChallenge video below:
