Salafist leaders celebrate ceath of Coptic Pope in Egypt

As Christians across Egypt continued to mourn the loss of Pope Shenouda III t, Islamist leaders of the Salafist movement issued a litany of insults, calling the late leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church the “head of the infidels” and thanking God for his death.

The vitriol indicated the level of hostility the Salafists, who now make up 20 percent of Egypt’s parliament, have toward Christians. In a recorded message released on the Facebook page of one leading Salafi teacher, Sheik Wagdy Ghoneim, the sheik celebrated the pontiff’s death.

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Egypt’s Coptic Christians boycott constitutional panel over Islamist influence

The Arab Spring has led to a dismantling of the Egyptian government and fears over minority rights in the Middle Eastern nation. Shortly after the initial protests that led to former President Hosni Mubarak ouster, Coptic Christians had deadly run-ins with military leaders.

Recently, The Blaze highlighted the ongoing assault against Christians in detail. Now, with Islamists taking control of the Egyptian parliament and with an impending presidential election, the Coptic Orthodox church is taking a stand.

(Related: Muslim Brotherhood Reverses Course, Will Run Its Own Candidate for President in Egypt)

According to AFP, the church will boycott an Islamist-dominated panel that has been tasked with putting together the nation’s future constitution. The current commission has 100 members who were selected by the parliament to examine the issue. The parliament, of course, is predominantly made up of Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists.

Rather than keeping its two church members on the committee, the Holy Synod has decided, unanimously, to remove them from the discussions. According to a report from the MENA news agency, the church believes that it’s “inappropriate to continue to be represented given the reservations of various political forces on how the constitutional commission was composed.”

These withdrawals come as some individuals are claiming that they are being used, AFP reports, as “collateral” for Islamists seeking to infuse the new constitution with their political ideology. The Christians’ decision comes following Pope Shenouda III’s death. Shenouda, the leader of the Coptic church, often acted to protect the religious minority.

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We would allow a Coptic president only if Israel allows a Muslim one: Salafist leader

AHRAMONLINE

One of Egypt's most prominent Salafist leader has said he would only accept a Coptic Christian president of Egypt, if the US, Britain and Israel accepted a Muslim president of their countries.

According to Yasser Burhami, head of the influential El-Dawa El-Salafiya (Salafist Call) group, Copts do not have the right to run for political office in Egypt.

Egypt election results are a nightmare come true

ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS

Israel’s worst fears regarding its relationship with the Arab world – and with Egypt in particular – are coming true before its eyes, Middle East expert Dr. David Buk’i told Arutz 7 in an interview Saturday night. “The rise of the Islamists in Egypt means the end of the peace treaty with Egypt and the rise of a government committed to the ideological Islamist goal of the destruction of the State of Israel,” Buk’i said.

With results in from the first round ofvoting in Egypt, it’s clear that the Islamist coalition has emerged as the largest faction in the future Egyptiangovernment, by far. The Muslim Brotherhood captured more than 40% of the vote, but the hardline Islamist Salafist Nour Party garnered some 20% of the vote – placing the Islamist coalition firmly in control of Egypt’s parliament, at least until the second round of voting in several weeks.

Buk’i is not surprised at the results, and in fact, he says, he warned months ago that this was exactly what would happen. “It was already clear to me last February that the uprisings in the Arab world were not an ‘Arab spring,’ but rather a bitter ‘Arab winter’ and a return to chaos and violence.When you give a Muslim a free voice in electing his leaders, he will pick an Islamist leadership every time, because that’s what he knows and appreciates. That the Muslim Brotherhood will solve Egypt’s problems is clear to the average Egyptian,” Buk’i said.

And once Islamism is firmly planted, it spreads quickly, says Buk’i. “The foolish West helped Al-Qaeda win in Libya, and Al-Qaeda now controls Tunisia. And it is spreading to other nations. There are two powers in the Arab world – military dictatorships and Islamism, and it is in the interests of the West to side with the dictatorships. Tragedy and catastrophe ensue when Islamists win,” he added. “Israel is seeing the catastrophe unfold now.” 

 

Egypt’s Christians deserve a democratic future too

The measure of a true democracy is not just how well it represents the will of the majority, but also by how effectively it safeguards the fundamental rights of minorities within the population. 
 
On the evidence of the past nine months, Egypt has been on course to fail this test with dangerous consequences. Some nine million of Egypt’s citizens, over 10 per cent of the population, are Christians. For them, the "Egyptian Spring" that began in February has not brought tangible benefits; if anything their situation, already severe before the revolution, has worsened.

Under President Hosni Mubarak, Christians suffered significant discrimination at both the state and the extra-judicial level. The right to build a church was dependent upon presidential decree; Muslim converts to Christianity found it impossible to obtain ID reflecting the fact; and discrimination against Christians in the public sphere was endemic. 
 
Unsurprisingly, Egypt’s Christians played a full and active role in the February revolution that forced President Mubarak from power. Amongst other notable acts, Christians established a field hospital to treat the wounded in Tahrir square and numerous images showed Muslims and Christians holding hands whilst chanting a common refrain of the revolution, “Muslims, Christians, we are all Egyptians”.

In spite of this, however, the solidarity of Egypt’s Christians with their fellow citizens has not been rewarded. Sources inside the country report that discrimination against Christian children, often by their own teachers, carries on unchecked. Getting a good job as a Christian in the workplace is still as hard as ever. It remains impossible to build a church legally, and converts to Christianity still cannot obtain legal recognition of that fact.

And this is not the end of the story. So high is anti-Christian feeling running in the new Egypt that twice in the past six months, clashes have taken place which have left scores of Christians dead. Worse is the fact that this violence is not merely sectarianism gone mad, still less the subversive influence of "foreign agents", as the authorities in Egypt so frequently claim. There is very good evidence to suggest that state security forces have not just been negligent in their handling of Christian protests, but have actually been engaged in bloodletting themselves. Unlike with the most recent round of Egyptian protests, however, this violence elicited no apology from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), still less any promises to reform.

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Eritrean refugees face imminent repatriation from Egypt and high risk of persecution on return

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) www.csw.org.uk  says that while all the refugees risk severe persecution if returned to Eritrea, ten of them occupied key positions within the Eritrean regime before they fled the country, and their lives would be in extreme danger should they be returned.

According to Agenzia Habeshia, some of the men in the group were badly beaten about a week ago, and have now received medical attention, CSW said.

In a media update, CSW says the continuing exodus of Eritrean citizens from their country, conservatively estimated at 1,000 people per month, is testament to the on-going human rights crisis in the country.

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Egyptian Sheikh issues fatwa prohibiting votes for Christian, secular candidates

Mohammad Amer, a Salafi Sheikh in Damanhur, Egypt, issued a fatwa prohibiting votes for any Christian, secular or liberal candidate, as well as any Muslim candidate who does not pray daily or call for the implementation of Shariah law. 

 

Bikyamasr ) - The fatwa also prohibited voting for any former member of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), associated with the regime of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, with the exception of a few "honorable" candidates.

Amer claimed that voting for any such candidate would constitute a grave sin.

"I want the voters to vote in favor of the candidates of the Islamic movements and to oppose those who want to separate religion from the state. There is nothing called liberalism in Islam and there is no absolute freedom in our religion," he said to London's Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, defending the move.

Amer is the head of the Giza Governorate branch of al-Sunna al-Mohamadeya. He came under fire earlier this year when he released a fatwa claiming that Egyptian political figure Mohamed ElBaradei could be killed for calling for the boycott of Egyptian elections and civil disobedience.

"ElBaradei incites civil unrest," said the controversial fatwa. "For this, the rulers, represented by the Government and President Hosni Mubarak, have the right to kill him if he does not stop."

Human rights organizations quickly condemned the fatwa, noting that the same grounds were used in legitimizing the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat.

Egypt Pope orders first post-revolution count of Christian population

AHRAMONLINE

Egypt’s Pope Shenouda III has ordered a census of the country’s entire Christian population to be conducted through committees accountable to the Church.

The Church’s census will for the first time include all the Christian denominations in Egypt, not just the Coptic Orthodox, which constitutes the largest Christian denomination in Egypt.

It will also be the first in post-revolution Egypt. Prior to the uprising, there were significant differences between government estimates of the Coptic population and those of the Church.

An unofficial census, conducted by a number of Christian organisations in cooperation with the Church, published figures on Sunday showing the entire Christian population of Egypt neared 17 million, around 20 per cent of the population.

The latest government estimates of the Egyptian Christian population stated they made up around 4 per cent (around 3.3 million) of the total population of around 83 million."
 

What next for Nubians of Egypt?

In the wake of the January 25 revolution, the world’s media have given a great deal of attention to the plight of Egypt’s Christian minority, the Copts, and what place there might be for them in the country’s future. However, Egypt has another aggrieved minority who are starting to make their demands heard, and now Egypt’s 3 million Nubians are hoping to reclaim their rights and address their long-standing grievances with the government.

For thousands of years, the Nubians lived in villages along the banks of the Nile, stretching from Aswan in southern Egypt and into northern Sudan. In spite of the huge changes that swept across the region down the millennia, the Nubians retained their own distinct language, customs and culture until the present day. Yet the rush to industrialise Egypt in the 20^th century finally put an end to their way of life, forcing them to abandon their lands and find new lives across southern Egypt and northern Sudan.


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Muslim Brotherhood makes fools of naive West

PAJAMASMEDIA
Can you imagine this? The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood lied! And can you imagine this: the two civilians who are Egypt’s greatest hope for avoiding an Islamist dictatorship are very worried.

Let’s start with the Brotherhood. First, it promised to run candidates for only one-third of the parliamentary seats, saying this would proof of its moderation and willingness to share power.
But a little later, it raised that number to 50 percent but said that’s all and they wouldn’t run a candidate for president. Again, we were told: they’re moderate!

Next, it created a front party to run a candidate for president. For months the Western media generally told us that this party was independent of the Brotherhood, had split off from the Brotherhood to run a candidate for president. That made this party even more moderate than the moderate Brotherhood.

Finally, now that the media admits this is a Brotherhood-controlled party, it announces, too, that it will run candidates for all the parliamentary seats.

How do we know they are moderate? Well, because they say so. For example, the Brotherhood has announced that it will not run on the slogan, “Islam is the solution!” Their new official slogan is:
“We bring good [things] for Egypt.” How moderate can you get?

Some details. The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party dominates the 11-party Democratic Alliance (again, a nice “moderate” name). The Alliance will run candidates in the 76 multi-candidate proportional representation districts and in the 113 single-seat districts. Incidentally, two of its partners are leftist parties, including al-Ghad.

As in Tunisia (and Turkey and in the Palestinian elections won by Hamas some years ago), the opposition is divided, disorganized, and some of its members are ready to make a deal with the Islamists.

The opposition 21-party Egyptian Bloc has collapsed in only two months. Only three determined secular-oriented parties remain in it: the genuinely liberal Free Egyptians Party (drawing mostly Christian support), the tiny Egyptian Social Democratic Party, and the radical leftist Tagammu Party.

The “Facebook kid” left-liberal Justice Party has formed its own bloc called The Revolution Continues while the Salafis (openly radical Islamists) are trying to combine in the Nour Party.
The three main “liberal” parties–Wafd, Free Egyptians, Justice–are all running against each other. They’ll split the vote and in district after district the Islamists will win.

Moreover, the Brotherhood is following a brilliant strategy to build a united front for Sharia, bringing in other clerics and gradually winning over more and more of the religious establishment to an Islamist position. The proportion of non-Islamist forces among observant Muslims thus steadily declines. Religious Islam as it has been actually practiced and political Islamism have not been the same thing but they are increasingly becoming the same thing as the Islamists win the battle of interpretation.

As a result of all of these factors, I’m changing my prediction. A poll misread by American “experts” supposedly claimed that the Brotherhood had only 13 percent support and was no threat. I analyzed the poll as putting them at 33 percent. A new poll by the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute puts the Brotherhood at 39 percent. I am now predicting that the Brotherhood and other radical Islamists may get to almost 50 percent.

Am I being too alarmist? Well let’s listen to the two most interesting non-Islamist political figures in Egypt.  Amr Moussa, who might well be Egypt’s next president though it seems he will have to await elections in 2013, is one of the smartest politicians in the Arabic-speaking world.

A former foreign minister and head of the Arab League, he is also an intemperate, radical Arab nationalist who knows how to use demagoguery and populism to rally support for himself. Of course, that’s also why he’s the great black-white-red (the Arab nationalist colors) hope to defeat the green of the Islamists.

So it’s worth listening to his reading of the current situation. Briefly, Egypt will elect a parliament on November 28—probably with the Muslim Brotherhood as the biggest party—that will choose a constitution-writing committee in April 2012. Only after a constitution is completed, no earlier than the summer of 2013, will a president be elected. Thus decrees the military junta. Since he’s already 75, Moussa is understandably in a hurry.

Amr Moussa says that in the interim he fears Egypt could be plunged into a terrible crisis by growing violence and economic disaster (the country has lost an estimated $10 billion due to the revolution and subsequent disruption). That makes sense. “My biggest fear is anarchy,” says Moussa. “A long transitional period…will create an opportunity for all those who want to play havoc with the Egyptian society.”

Right. Islamists will continue to attack Christians, whom the government and army won’t protect. The Brotherhood will complain that if only it was in charge and could implement a policy of hope and change everything would be great. Islamists and liberals will join together to bash the junta as anti-democratic and intending to keep power for itself.

So while the junta’s decision to create dual power—a military executive and an elected legislature–is understandable since it is horrified at the rise of Islamism and violence it is also likely to be turbulent.

Then there’s Naguib Sawaris, a billionaire, Christian, and the founder of the Free Egyptians’ Party, the only group that’s likely to fight Islamism. He has just given a fascinating interview to Bloomberg Business News.

The problem is that while the party has many Muslims in the leadership and membership (two-thirds, it claims) most of its votes will probably come from Christians, the only large sector of the population willing to battle for secularism.

Sawaris is not a man who is easily intimidated, ignoring the many death threats. Yet on the national stage he is merely an uppity dhimmi, albeit one with 139,000 followers to his Twitter account. He also has a sense of humor, posting a picture of Mickey and Minnie Mouse in Islamic garb. The Islamists, however, don’t have a sense of humor, launching a costly boycott of his businesses.

Last July, an Islamist preacher said on cable television, “We will kill him even if he repents.” You see, Sawaris lives in luxury and has massive business interests and power. But here’s how a revolutionary Islamist thinks: For all that, he’s just another infidel and one swing of the sword will cut through even the most expensive tailor-made collar.

Sawaris thinks Egypt may well end up like Iran. He watches as Christians are attacked, Islamist terrorists released from prison. and a rising demagoguery targets Israel as Egypt’s -main problem.

Prediction: By mid-2012 everyone will be writing about the failure of the Egyptian revolution and how it has made things worse for the country and terrible for the region. Added prediction: they will be saying the same thing about Tunisia and Libya. Will this combination be enough to wake up the West to the threat of revolutionary Islamism and the catastrophic consequences of current Western policy toward the Middle East? 
 

State Department training Islamic political parties in Egypt

THECABLEFOREIGNPOLICY

U.S. assistance to Egypt is helping political parties of all ideologies prepare for the upcoming elections — even Islamic parties that may have anti-Western agendas.

“We don’t do party support. What we do is party training…. And we do it to whoever comes,”William Taylor, the State Department’s director of its new office for Middle East Transitions, said in a briefing with reporters today. ”Sometimes, Islamist parties show up, sometimes they don’t. But it has been provided on a nonpartisan basis, not to individual parties.”

The programs, contracted through the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), include helping political parties in Egypt conduct polling, provide constituent services, and prepare for election season. NDI’s chairwoman is former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. IRI’s chairman is Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Taylor said that none of the U.S. funding that has gone to election preparation is coordinated or vetted through the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which assumed power after the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak.

“It absolutely does not go to the SCAF,” he said, noting that the Egyptian military still receives billions in military aid from the United States.

Taylor, who just got back from a trip to Egypt and Tunisia, said that he left Egypt unworried about the SCAF holding on to power after the coming elections.

“They wanted to make it very clear to this American sitting on the other side of the table that they didn’t like the governing business,” he said. “I do believe that they are uncomfortable governing. Some would say they’re not doing a great job of it. ”

Taylor led a similar office in the 1990s that coordinated policy in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. He is pressing for $2 billion in new aid to Egypt, half in loans and half in debt forgiveness, but acknowledged that the U.S. fiscal situation is not nearly as good now as it was then.

“This is a tight time on budgets here, as we all know. And when [State Department spokeswoman]Toria [Nuland] and I worked together earlier, we had a lot more money to put in to the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe,” he said. “Now, that having been said, we recognize that there are other countries that are eager to provide support, and we support that.”

But Taylor also said that promises of financial assistance to Egypt from other countries in the region have not materialized, leaving Egypt’s government with little choice but to accept billions of dollar in loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank — loans that come with strings attached.

“The IMF was in Egypt, and they put an offer of about $3 billion on the table for the finance minister. The finance minister was interested. He went to the SCAF. The SCAF said, ‘No, thank you.’ The finance minister told the IMF, ‘No, thank you.’ But just last week when I was there, he told me that he’s likely to be able to accept an IMF offer this time,” Taylor said.

Egypt owes the United States about $1 billion over the next three years from previous loans, but if Congress agrees, the State Department wants to let Egypt keep that money and spend it on its political transition, with U.S. Consultation.

“We, the United States government, will agree with you, the Egyptian government, on how to spend that billion dollars in Egypt,” Taylor said. ”But it won’t come here. It won’t come back to the Treasury. It’ll stay there and do projects that we are working on right now.”

Taylor said the money would be spent on an “identifiable” joint project that would show Egyptians that “yes, we do care if your transition works.”

Ethiopian refugees face organ theft in Egypt's Sinai desert

The New Generation Foundation for Human Rights and the EveryOne Group, from Italy, have presented evidence that the bodies of African refugees have been found in the Sinai desert with organs missing.

According to rights groups, refugees -- from places like Ethiopia, Eritrea or Sudan - are enslaved and tortured and the women raped if they cannot come up with the large sums of money the Bedouin try to extort from them and their families, to smuggle them into Israel.

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Egypt’s massacre of Christians

Western media coverage of the recent massacre of Coptic Christians in Cairo, Egypt—in which the military killed dozens of Christians and injured some 300—was, as discussed earlier, deplorable. It merely repeated the false propaganda of the complicit state-run media, without checking facts. Since then, further proofs of the lies and brutality surrounding the massacre have emerged; they are compiled in the following report which consists of facts and videos from Arabic sources—many of which have not appeared in the Western media.

This report documents: 1) the activities of the Supreme Military Council of Egypt and de facto ruler; 2) the lies and duplicitous tactics of both the Military Council and its media mouthpiece, Egyptian TV; and 3) the anti-Christian sentiment pervading all aspects of this incident.


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Another genocide in the Middle East

It is very hard to believe that -at the 21st century- security and equality for Christians in Egypt is still a dream!! The Copts are the largest minority in the world without rights! Christians of Egypt are facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Fanatic Muslims supported and blessed by the authorities!

Although Coptic Christians in Egypt have the right for a special treatment to compensate for centuries of discrimination and persecution, at present, they are only asking for equality and human dignity.

In 1979, after kissing the hands of the Americans, former Egyptian president Anwar- El-Sadat felt adopted by his new masters who were so eager to see some semblance of the peace in the strategic area of the Middle East. They all lavished him with praise, approval and funds to keep him committed and loyal to the peace deal with Israel. But this was Sadat’s game plan; if he acts in a sycophant manner with the Americans, they will close their eyes about Egypt’s dismal record on human rights and he can continue with his plan to eliminate Christianity from Egypt. Both MUHAMMAD Anwar El-Sadat and Zul Fiqar Ali Bhutto sponsored the secret resolutions of the second Islamic summit which called for the elimination of Christians and Christianity from the Middle East by the year 2000. But God had other plans than his. Both he and Bhutto had their lives ended in the most disgraceful way. After his return to Pakistan General Zia Ul-Haq overthow Bhutto and ignoring international appeals to spare his life, he had him hanged in the early hours of the day shackled in chains and led barefooted to the gallows.  Later on Sadat was fatally shot by the hands of the people he trained to kill the Christians.

The Copts face real extermination steps since the events of Khanka, through al-Zawiah al-Hamra, KOSHEH, Assiut, Al-Muharraq monastery, and Alexandria... Etc. They are now hitting monks! They have been killing Copts and looting of their property and oppressing them. The Egyptian authorities are keen to mention such barbaric actions as individual events. While Copts live in fear, they are supporting the criminals and offenders and enable them to escape without any punishment.

Fridays became night-mares for Christians as the assailants -prodded along by the imam's fanatic address- decide to take the law in their own hands and attack the Copts, believing they are thus doing Islam the greatest favor ever! Being inflamed by the Imam of the mosque after Fridays' prayers, the mob start chanting anti-Christian and anti-Jewish slogans and hurling rocks and fire at the places of worship, stores, cars and houses of the Christians! They raid the churches, attack and kill the innocent prayers using the swords! Although they are the original natives of Egypt, Copts gradually became dispensable second-class citizens since the Islamic invasion of the seventh century. Copts became a minority although their number may exceed sixteen millions, which is about 20% of Egypt's population in honest census that they are denied to have. This has been the result of forced conversion to Islam, paying the costly tribute or facing martyrdom!

Copts who are converted to Islam through the many oppressive ways are not allowed to return to Christianity as the officials deny issuing Identification cards that have their original names and religion. To convert to Islam, the government makes it the easiest and sweetest trip. Copts are humiliated every second through the state owned media that are paid for by the tax-payers money where Copts pay most of it. Besides the intensifying cultural, educational, religious, social, judicial and economic hardships made Copts immigrate and leave their home-land. Above seven million Copts left Egypt since the last fifty years. More than one million settled in USA and became very successful as this is the land of equal opportunity. That shows the cultural effect on achievement. In short, Copts in Egypt are persecuted. They can not even dare to say that, otherwise they will face the terrible fate. Can you speak up for them? Proverbs 31:8-9 says "Speak up for those who can't speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the right of the poor and needy

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt are humiliated, tortured, persecuted, and even killed. Security agencies go into coma as long as the victims were Copts. Truly, it is the policy of eliminating Christianity in Egypt. Monks in monasteries have suffered all kinds of torment and humiliation. They were kidnapped and the assailants asked them to spit on the Cross and become Muslims! Can you believe that the governor of Minya, told Abu Fana monks to pay Gizia to the criminal Arab offenders to live in safety? Do you imagine that in the twenty-first century, the aggressors hold modern weapons and the State protect them and protect their weapons as long as they are directed against the Christians?

In the latest "cycle of violence", Egyptian security forces joined in with a Muslim mob bringing terror and death to group of Coptic protesters who were ironically demonstrating against the terror and death Muslim mobs have been bringing to Copts.

Crimes against humanity are committed from Alexandria to Minya. This happens only because they are Christians, and the Muslim believes that the Christian blood and money are permitted and halal for Muslims.

Of course, this is not entirely a new phenomenon. The ethnic cleansing of Christians in Egypt has been going on since 639 AD, when Muslims first invaded the country. This is only the final stage in the attempted extermination of a people -- one that has already been repeated many times across the Middle East.

The attack is still ongoing upon underage girls and forced Islamization is still happening through the encouragement of authorities. The suffering of the monks, the atrocities of our brothers and sisters, the on-going physical liquidation of the Coptic Christians in general must be stopped.

Christianity is positive not negative, Christianity is work, not slump, Christianity is love not hate! The Christian appeal and cooperation are not selfish. Christianity does not accept injustice or humiliation! The Christian crown over our heads mandates us to show that we deserve it. Our voices have to go to the sky carried by the angels and moving them to the Glory of Jesus Christ. Your voices have to be heard .The defenseless must be defended. We need to speak for those who do not have the right to speak.

Egypt: Christian student murdered for refusing to remove crucifix

AINA

Ayman Nabil Labib, a 17-year-old Coptic Christian student, was murdered by Muslim classmates after refusing to remove a crucifix he was wearing, the Assyrian International News Agency is reporting.

The murder, which took place on October 16 in the central Egyptian town of Mallawi, took place after a teacher asked Labib to cover up a tattooed cross on his wrist. Labib refused, instead uncovering a cross necklace.

“The teacher nearly choked my son, and some Muslim students joined in the beating,” said Labib’s father.

“They beat my son so much in the classroom that he fled to the lavatory on the ground floor, but they followed him and continued their assault,” the victim’s mother added. “When one of the supervisors took him to his room, Ayman was still breathing. The ambulance transported him from there dead, one hour later.”

US Congressional heading on the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, held a hearing on the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the political future of the country.



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Muslim Attack on Christians in Egypt Provoked By Installation of Church Bell

AINA

An exchange of harsh words on July 25 between Ruth, a Christian woman, and Gassem Fouad, a Muslim man who had parked his tricycle in front of her home, escalated into assault by the man on Ruth and other Christian villagers, and the arrest of one Copt. After Ruth, who is 5 months pregnant, was assaulted, a Muslim mob waited for Coptic farmers to return from the fields, where they were intercepted and beaten with iron rods and pipes.

Security forces managed to contain the situation.

Six Christians, including Ruth and her sister-in-law Hannan, were hospitalized with concussions, head injuries and broken limbs. No Muslim was injured.

None of the Muslim perpetrators was arrested. Ruth's husband, Kirillos Daniel, was accused of possessing a weapon -- a rifle found thrown where the Christians were attacked, and is under detention.

In an interview on CTV Coptic TV, Father Estephanos Shehata, of the Samalout Coptic dioceses, said "The real reason behind this assault was the church bell, which has greatly angered the Muslims in the village." He said the dilapidated church in the village of Ezbet Jacob Bebawi, outside Samalout, north of Minya, was given permission to renovate and this was completed last week, and the church bell was reinstalled.

"This is the first time such an incident has taken place in this village," said Father Estephanos, "which is 60-75% Christian, and the reason is definitely the presence of the church bell."

Christian villagers believe this assault was premeditated and they fear their church faces imminent attack, especially since Muslims have been slowly congregating in the village, which has a very weak presence of security forces.

Egyptian Muslim Ring Uses Sexual Coercion to Convert Christian Girls

The number of Christian girls abducted and coerced into converting to Islam since the Egyptian "January 25 Revolution" has skyrocketed, according to Father Filopateer Gamil of St. Mary's Church in Giza. "More than two to three girls disappear everyday in Giza alone," he said. "The cases that are brought to public attention are few compared to what the numbers actually are."

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Christians at Risk: A Jew's Concern

I read with dismay the reports of repeated assaults on Copts in Egypt.
Here's a Wall Street Journal account (June 11):

Five weeks after the fall of the Egyptian regime, Ayman Anwar Mitri's [a member of the Christian Coptic minority] apartment was torched. When he showed up to investigate, he was bundled inside by bearded Islamists...[who] accused him of having rented the apartment - by then unoccupied - to loose Muslim women...They beat him with the charred remains of his furniture. Then, one of them produced a box cutter and...amputated Mr. Mitri's right ear.

"When they were beating me, they kept saying: 'We won't leave any Christians in this country,'" Mr. Mitri recalled in a recent interview.

Earlier reports this year spoke of a destroyed church in Soul, 20 miles from Cairo, and the mass evacuation of Christians from the village, as well as the New Year's Day bombing of an Alexandria church, leaving 25 Christians dead and scores wounded. And that's only for starters.

Discrimination, distrust, and paranoia feed the troubling climate. Rumors spread like wildfire. A Christian has allegedly abducted a Muslim and tattooed her with a cross. A Muslim disappears and Christians are accused of violence. An intermarriage triggers fear that Christians are trying to subvert the majority population.

Egypt, of course, has been heavily in the political news in recent months. Unrest in the streets led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The spirit of Tahrir Square captured the imagination of many. Talk of a new dawn in Egypt has been widespread.

But if a page is to be turned in the Arab world's most populous country, it cannot come at the expense of a vulnerable minority. Copts have lived in Egypt for nearly 2,000 years and represent the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, comprising ten percent of Egypt's 83 million inhabitants.

While some Egyptians, to their credit, have spoken bravely of national unity between Muslims and Copts, they have not been able to stop the deadly assaults or lessen the widespread fear.

As a Jew, I identify with the Copts' situation.

Perhaps it's because we can write a doctoral thesis on the topic of minority status. We know all too well what it means to live in a country where legal protections are left to the whim of the authorities, not embedded in a country's DNA or democratic architecture.

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Egyptian Muslims torch 8 Christian homes on rumor of church construction

AINA

A mob of nearly 200 Muslims torched eight Christian homes on Saturday morning in the Upper Egyptian village of Awlad Khalaf. The attack was initiated by a rumor that a house which is being built by Wahib Halim Attia will be turned into a church. Two Christians and one Muslim were injured, no fatalities were reported.

Wahib Halim Attia obtained a license to build a house in the village on a 95 square meter plot. The house grew to an area of 350 square meters but was still on agricultural land that he owns. This gave rise to the rumor that he intended to build a church instead.

Father Weesa Azmy, the priest at St. George Church in the neighboring village of Negou Madam East, said that someone went to the City Council in Dar es Salam and told them about the irregularities in the house construction, and Wahib was ordered to remove the excess by June 24. "Instead Wahib carried on with the construction, which angered the Muslims, who decided to play God and take the law into their own hands; they attacked the construction site and other Christian homes."

According to Father Weesa, Muslims broke into the home of Ihab Tamer, who defended himself with a rifle. A Muslim who was there to help Ihab was injured by a bullet in his leg from Tamer's rifle. The matter was explained and resolved with the family of that Muslim.

According to eyewitnesses the Muslims, mostly Salafists and some youngsters, looted and torched eight homes belonging to Wahib Halim Attia and his two brothers, his three cousins and two other Copts, including Ihab Tamer.

The police arrived three hours after the looting and torching had ended.

Father Weesa said Ihab Tamer, who was in hiding after the shooting incident, contacted him and he advised him to give himself up to the police as he was acting in self-defense. "If someone sees people breaking into his home, surely he has to defend his family and himself."

The police told father Weesa, who did not witness the incident himself, that most of the attackers were teenagers between the ages of 10 and 14 years old. This was refuted by eyewitnesses. However, he said "if it is true that there were children and teens, then definitely someone else has sent them." He added he will not attend any reconciliation meetings and the rule of law must be upheld, on the Copt if found guilty and the attackers. Most of the teens and children were arrested by the police but no adults were arrested.

Police and security are now present in Awlad Khalaf village and the 30 Christian homes are being guarded, the Security Chief said tonight on the Egyptian State TV.