Coptic Christians - Recent Developments
About 25 people were killed 09 October 2011 when clashes erupted among security forces, Muslims and minority Copts who were demonstrating in Cairo. Egyptian military officials denied reports that troops opened fire on Copt demonstrators and that soldiers in armored vehicles deliberately ran over protesters. Video of the violence showed military vehicles plowing through unarmed Christian protesters. Activists accuse the military of instigating sectarian hatred as a way to end protests and halt criticism. The unrest began after more than 1,000 Copts marched to the state television building in protest of a recent attack by Islamist radicals on a Coptic church in the country's south. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's roughly 80 million people. Many complain that Egypt's new leadership has been too lenient on Islamists they blame for a series of anti-Christian attacks since a popular uprising forced the resignation of President Mubarak.
Anti-Coptic sentiment has accompanied the resurgence of Islamic activism in Egypt. Since 1972 several Coptic churches have been burned, including the historic Qasriyat ar Rihan Church in Cairo. Islamist groups frequently and explicitly denounced Copts in their pamphlets and prayer meetings. The increasing tensions between Copts and Muslims inevitably led to clashes in Upper Egypt in 1977 and 1978 and later in the cities and villages of the Delta. Three days of religious riots in Cairo in 1981 left at least 17 Copts and Muslims dead and more than 100 injured. Isolated incidents of Muslim-Coptic violence continued throughout the 1980s and during 1990.
Coptic Pope Shenudah III (elected in 1971) blamed government silence for the increasing violence. He also expressed alarm at official actions that he said encouraged anti-Coptic feelings. In 1977, to protest a Ministry of Justice proposal to apply sharia legal penalties to any Muslim who converted from Islam, the pope called on the Coptic community to fast for five days. As harassment of Copts increased, Pope Shenudah III canceled official Easter celebrations for 1980 and fled to a desert convent with his bishops. Sadat accused the pope of inciting the Coptic-Muslim strife and banished him in September 1981 to internal exile. The government then appointed a committee of five bishops to administer the church. The following year, the government called upon the church synod to elect a new pope, but the Coptic clergy rejected this state intervention. In 1985 Husni Mubarak released Pope Shenudah III from internal exile and permitted him to resume his religious duties.
Following the outbreak of the A/H1N1 influenza virus, initially dubbed "swine flu," the Government ordered the culling of the country's estimated 400,000 swine population to begin on May 1, 2009. After the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization announced that the slaughter of the animals would have no affect on the circulation of the A/H1N1 virus, the Ministry of Health admitted, according to Al-Masry Al-Yom and other newspapers, that the country exploited the international spread of the virus to put an end to what it termed the disorderly and unhygienic raising of pigs in congested urban areas. Ministry of Health spokesman Abdulrahman Shaheen affirmed that the decision to slaughter all the pigs was more to safeguard public health than a precautionary measure in confronting the virus. However some observers identified a sectarian motive for the action. The Government's culling of the swine had a severe economic impact on Coptic Christian families who rely on pigs and garbage scavenging for their primary income.
Violent sectarian attacks on Copts and Baha'is increased during 2009. On April 5, 2009, sectarian tensions flared in Alexandria governorate when hundreds of Muslims damaged Christian-owned shops, hurling stones at the shops and destroying them with sticks. The attacks followed the death of a Muslim man who reportedly was stabbed to death in a fight with Coptic neighbors. There were at least six similar incidents in Minya Governorate in the villages of Dier El Barsha, Dafash, Sila al-Gharbya, Kom El Mahras, Al Tayeba, and Abou Korkas. Other incidents involved land disputes that led to sectarian hostility. Other incidents involved allegations of sexual harassment or romantic relationships.
On June 29, 2009, state security and police forces reportedly instigated a sectarian clash in Boshra, near Beni Suef, when they prevented Christians from praying in an unlicensed church. The Government failed to prosecute perpetrators of crimes against Copts. Courts -- while calling for legislative reform to achieve effective protection for freedom of religion and to confront the manipulation of religion -- have ruled against converts from Islam to Christianity who had appealed for official recognition of his conversion on the basis of constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion.
Egypt's Coptic Christian community was celebrating midnight mass on 07 January 2010, Christmas Day according to the Coptic calendar, when the shooter sprayed a large crowd in front of the church with a hail of gunfire. Many died on the spot. Others were taken to the hospital, in serious condition. Nag Hamadi is 64 kilometers from the famous Temple of Luxor. It has been racked by sectarian violence since the alleged sexual assault of a Muslim girl by a Christian man, in November 2009. Muslim residents of the town ransacked, burned and looted Christian homes and shops for five days after the alleged incident.
At least seven Coptic Christians were killed and another half dozen were wounded - many seriously - after a drive-by shooting after a Christmas midnight mass in Nag Hamadi in Upper Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday 24 January 2010 said he will never allow anybody to harm Egypt's national unity. In his speech at celebrations marking the Police Day, President Mubarak warned, in his capacity as the president of Egypt and all Egyptians, of the dangers of tampering with Egypt's national unity and attempts to drive a wedge between Egyptian Muslims and Copts. And on 22 January 2010 an Official Source at the Foreign Ministry criticized the "negative role played by some European Parliament members (MEPs) of known Christian rightist inclinations to urge the European Parliament to adopt a resolution in which the last incidents of Nag Hamadi were considered, noting that it is an internal Egyptian matter that no foreign party is allowed to consider."
At least 23 people were killed 01 January 2011 and nearly 100 wounded in a suicide bombing attack at a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt. Tensions between Christians and Muslims have been on the rise in Egypt and nearby Iraq following recent threats by the al-Qaida terrorist group. Edward Yeranian reports from Cairo. The Egyptian Interior Ministry issued a statement saying the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber and that forensic tests indicate the materials used in the explosion were homemade. The statement added that initial reports of a carbomb were incorrect. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak immediately condemned the explosion and called on Egyptians to avoid further sectarian strife.
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