ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, October 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least three people have been killed and around 60 injured in violent clashes Friday, October 21, between Muslim protestors and police in Alexandria amid mounting tensions in the Egyptian Mediterranean city over the DVD release of an anti-Islam play produced by the Mar Girgis Church.

One of the victims, Mohammad Zakariya, died of his injuries in hospital, while two others died shortly after midnight after police fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets on thousands of Muslims demonstrating against the play, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The play, a digital copy of which was seen by IslamOnline.net, is performed by amateur actors and tells the story of a young Christian who reverted to Islam and is exhorted by a sheikh to kill priests and destroy churches.

Abused and maltreated by the sheikh and his group, the young man eventually abandons Islam. The play further mocks at the bases of the Muslim faith.

After police broke up an earlier demonstration that had gathered about 5,000 people, Muslim demonstrators regrouped outside the church in the evening after the Tarawih prayers.

The violence intensified and spread after the first wounded protestor died, witnesses said.

Twenty policemen and sixty protestors were wounded, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP.

At least one police car and six other vehicles were burned in the clashes.

Fifty-three protestors had been arrested, according to the interior ministry.

Thousands protesting outside Mar Girgis church.

Protesters at Awlad Al-Sheikh mosque, adjacent to the church, told IOL Friday that only an apology and punishing those responsible would head off a deadly sectarian strife.

They lambasted a statement issued by the Council of Orthodox Copts in Alexandria, saying it came to justify the play instead of condemning it.

During similar protests on Friday, October 14, angry Muslim demonstrators gave Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Egypt's top Coptic cleric, one week to apologize and defrock the church's priests.

The Council of Orthodox Copts in Alexandria said the church made sure that the play was performed without incident two years ago inside the church's premises for just one day with the aim of fighting terrorism.

It said the issue was intentionally raised to pit the Egyptians against one another, claiming that Christians in Egypt were the subject of media irony but they did not react recklessly.

Shawki Mina, a retired general, told IOL at the Mar Girgis church that the play is like other works of art featured on the state television, which denounce the evil ideology of the terrorists.

He claimed that scenes that insult Prophet Muhammad were added to the circulated DVD and were not part of the original play, saying the man responsible has been detained by the feared State Security Police.

However, Shawki declined to give IOL a CD of the play's original version, arguing that police imposed a ban on the circulation of these CDs.

Bishop Salib Sawayres said Pope Shenouda pays due attention to the current tensions and had ordered the church to punish those behind the play.

"The pope said that the play mishandled the terror phenomenon and the church should have not engaged itself in the matter," he told IOL.