'Isām Sharaf visited Qena, where he met clerics and asserted that Egypt is not a place for fitnah tā'īfiyah.

He then headed to the conference room to deliver a speech for Qena's residents, but salafists and some remnants of the former regime's dissolved party, the National Democratic Party (NDP), threw a spanner in his visit and prevented him from completing his speech.

The disgruntled remnants kept chanting strange slogans like "we want him a Muslim," in reference to the governor.