Pakistani officials complained over the weekend that the American TV drama "Homeland", which was based on the Israeli show "Hatufim" ("Hostages"), depicted their country as a "grimy hellhole".

A Pakistani source cited by the New York Post condemned the portrayal of Islamabad as a "war zone where shootouts and bombs go off… nothing is further from the truth," describing the capital instead as a "quiet, picturesque city with beautiful mountains."

Officials also took issue with a plotline that insinuated that Pakistani security officials harbor terrorists, which they called "an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel," and also with the Urdu dialect spoken on the show.

"The accent is far from the local accent," a source said.

According to the officials, "Homeland"'s producers did not respond to the complaints.

Meanwhile, Egypt on Friday has joined Morocco in banning cinemas from showing the biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings" citing "historical inaccuracies."

A claim made in the film that the Pyramids were built by Jews represented, for the Egyptian censor board, one such inaccuracy, according to the Daily Mail website. Another example cited in the report was the depiction that the parting of the Red Sea was caused by an earthquake, rather than a divinely-sanctioned action by Moses.

Whereas it was unclear why Moroccan officials decided to ban the movie which had been given the green light by the state-run Moroccan Cinema Centre (CCM), which implements all rules concerning the industry.

Theatre managers said they received "verbal" instructions from the CCM not to begin screening the movie as planned on Wednesday, according to news website media24.

Others said CCM officials had informed them of the ban in person.

Hassan Belkady, who runs Cinema Rif in Casablanca, told media24 that he had been threatened with the closure of the business if he refused to implement the ban.