Persecution of Copts in Egypt

[Salpy]

I am starting this thread on the persecution of Copts in Egypt, partly to raise awareness of the horrific situation over there, and also to remind us to keep them in our prayers.  I am going to make this a sticky and I encourage people to post links to articles on the situation as often as they come up.

I ask that everyone abide by forum rules and avoid posting bare links.  Also, please do not copy and paste an entire article.  Please paste a couple paragraphs to accompany the link.

[Salpy]

From today:

Massive clashes that drew in Christians angry over a recent church attack, Muslims, and Egyptian security forces raged over a large section of downtown Cairo Sunday night, leaving at least 19 people dead and more than 150 injured, Health Ministry officials said. It was the worst violence since the 18-day uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.

...

The Christian protesters said their demonstration began as a peaceful attempt to sit in at the television building. But then, they said they came under attack by thugs in plainclothes who rained stones down on them and fired pellets.

"The protest was peaceful. We wanted to hold a sit-in, as usual," said Essam Khalili, a protester wearing a white shirt with a cross drawn on it. "Thugs attacked us and a military vehicle jumped over a sidewalk and ran over at least 10 people. I saw them."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20111009/D9Q900380.html

[Hiwot]

Selam to you dear Salpy

This is a wonderful idea! God bless you for doing this for the reasons you already mentioned. Things are getting worse and our beloved Copts are as ever witnessing with their blood the truth of our faith, let us join them in this great blessing in our prayers for them. Lord have mercy!

[Salpy]

From last month:

Christians in the Upper Egyptian village of Elmarinab in Edfu, Aswan province, have been forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George's Church, which was rebuilt in its previous location. Village Muslims, backed by Muslim Salafists from neighboring villages, have threatened to demolish the church on Friday September 9 after prayers and use it as a mosque.

Despite the presence of security forces, Muslims have blocked the roads to the village, refusing passage of any Christians under any circumstance.

Yesterday the military governor in Aswan was contacted as Christians were starving in their homes. Security officers were sent and accompanied two Christian youths to buy food for the villagers. Muslims at the entrance of the village tried to stop the two security cars. "Failing that they threatened that this would be the last time," said one villager. "It was heart-breaking to see the elderly running with the children to get a loaf of bread."

http://www.aina.org/news/20110908193725.htm



From October 1:

After Friday prayers today, a mob of several thousand Muslims from the village of Elmarinab in Edfu, Aswan province, demolished and torched St. George's church, which was being renovated. The mob demolished the dome, walls and columns, then went to the church depot where the lumber to be used for construction was stored and torched it. The fire lasted 2 hours but the attack continued until 7 PM.

In an interview on Coptic TV channel, Father Salib of St. George's Church said "the Imam of one of the village mosques called on the people to take matter in their own hands, he added. Other witnesses named the Imam as Sheikh Sabry.

According to eyewitnesses the Muslims also torched a large depot of electrical goods owned by a Copt, a supermarket and four Coptic homes. Muslims prevented the fire brigade from entering the village. Security forces, which were present, "stood there watching," said Mr.Michael Ramzy, a social worker at the church.

http://www.aina.org/news/20110930204413.htm

[Salpy]

Selam to you dear Salpy

This is a wonderful idea! God bless you for doing this for the reasons you already mentioned. Things are getting worse and our beloved Copts are as ever witnessing with their blood the truth of our faith, let us join them in this great blessing in our prayers for them. Lord have mercy!

Thank you, Hiwot.  I really want to raise awareness of this persecution, since it has reached such a critical point and the world seems to be looking the other way.

I really do encourage everyone to post about any news that comes up about the situation over there.  I look forward to the day when this thread will no longer be necessary and the Copts are living in peace.

[Salpy]

Here is a recent story about one very courageous girl who stood up for her faith:

On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year.

Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented. For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.

One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of “We don’t want Ferial here,” the teenager told The Associated Press.

http://www.peopleunlikeus.com/?p=18087&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=egyptian-arab-spring-brings-overt-discrimination-directed-toward-coptic-christians

[Salpy]

Coptic girls are especially at risk, as abductions, forced conversions, and forced marriages are on the rise:

Ten years ago, I was in Egypt interviewing Coptic Christians who described how persecution by Muslims had become a way of life for them. The situation is worse now because of increased abductions of Coptic girls, who are forced into a sham marriage with a Muslim, raped, forced to convert to Islam and separated for good from their families.

These are girls as young as 12 who are being grabbed off Egyptian streets. Photos are taken while the girl is being raped to blackmail her into converting, says Mary Abdelmassih, a Coptic activist.

“She’s told the pictures will go to her family,” she told me. “They’d rather die than have that happen.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/07/duin-coptic-girls-being-abducted/

[Gebre Menfes Kidus]

‎60 Minutes did a segment Sunday night on the current state of affairs in Egypt. Lots about the "Arab Spring," but only one mention of a Coptic Christian being killed. The martyrdom and persecution of Coptic Christians apparrently isn't as fashionable to cover as secular revolutions. 60 Minutes didn't bother to show us images like this. Let us pray for our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Egypt.


"Lord have mercy."


(If the image above is in violation of forum rules, please remove it.)

Selam

[dzheremi]

Yes, Gebre...Ahram's coverage has actually been much more honest and serious than any Western source. (Other stories update the number of dead to 19, by the way. Lord have mercy.)

There has already begun a Protest in Tahrir square against the violence of the previous day's events.

[mabsoota]

thanks for your prayers for our church, and may God give courage to all Christians who suffer.

[Lizzie]

Due to increasing violence in Egypt against the Coptic population, who have been suffering ongoing persecution for many years, today, the Coptic church has declared three days of fasting & prayer, beginning tomorrow, Tuesday 11th October 2011.

Please join with us in lifting up our hearts to God.

[CoptoGeek]

What I saw this weekend I can never forget.

I ask...no, I beg all US Citizen on this forum to write his/her Congressional Representative and urge them to cut ALL military aid to Egypt. Those tanks used to mow down innocent people and those bullets fired at innocent people were paid for by US tax dollars.

I also beg that you don't make this a secterian issue as this will only help accomplish what SCAF & the Islamists are trying to do. There were many good and decent Muslims protesting alongside Copts that were also killed and injured.

[CoptoGeek]

A firsthand account: Marching from Shubra to deaths at Maspiro

"And then it happened: an APC mounted the island in the middle of the road, like a maddened animal on a rampage. I saw a group of people disappear, sucked underneath it. It drove over them. I wasn’t able to see what happened to them because it then started coming in my direction."

"The Coptic Hospital tried its best to deal with the sudden influx of casualties. Its floors were sticky with blood and there was barely room to move among the wounded, the worried and the inconsolable."


http://Http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/503496

[Salpy]

I also beg that you don't make this a secterian issue as this will only help accomplish what SCAF & the Islamists are trying to do.

That's important to remember.

There were many good and decent Muslims protesting alongside Copts that were also killed and injured.

I've been seeing that in the articles I've been reading on the incident.  This reminds me of last January, when Muslims protested alongside Christians against the church bombing on New Year's Eve.  I guess we have to remember not to lump all Muslims together and to be aware that in Egypt there are many Muslims who believe in freedom of religion.

[sainthieu]

BISHOP DAVID: We will not be silent!

"In a powerful message from Bishop David, streamed on CopticWorld, he fired back at the Egyptian government for the events in Egypt that claimed the lives of at least 24 youth and injured at least 280 others.

"God will interfere when its the right time. His answer will be a powerful answer", the Bishop re-assured his audience.  "We are a peaceful people, we don't attack, we don't shout, we pray." His Grace also said, "We call on everyone to speak up and witness to the truth. We have to have one united voice from all people who love the truth whether they are Coptic or non-Coptic, Christian or non-Christians. We are not going to be silenced!

He urged fasting and prayer for the next three days.In a powerful message from Bishop David, streamed on CopticWorld, he fired back at the Egyptian government for the events in Egypt that claimed the lives of at least 24 youth and injured at least 280 others.

"God will interfere when its the right time. His answer will be a powerful answer", the Bishop re-assured his audience.  "We are a peaceful people, we don't attack, we don't shout, we pray." His Grace also said, "We call on everyone to speak up and witness to the truth. We have to have one united voice from all people who love the truth whether they are Coptic or non-Coptic, Christian or non-Christians. We are not going to be silenced!

He urged fasting and prayer for the next three days.

He also urged all Coptic Christians in the world to join CopticWorld in order to facilitate dissemination of information and breaking news from the leaders of the church. "This website will also give us a way to know how many we are and where we are. Please urge all your family and friends to join."

His Grace also urged all to sign a petition at: http://betterlifeforegypt.wordpress.com/"

[Lizzie]

A petition has been released to the White House. We need 25,000 signatures. The following are the links to the 2 petitions we need to sign. It only takes 5 minutes - spread the word! This is the least we can do! https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/protect-political-and-religious-rights-egypt/BxTnvvdj
&
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/cut-13b-aid-annually-egypt-unless-they-bring-justice-killers-massacre-coptic-christian/rr471DrY

[SubdeaconDavid]

What I saw this weekend I can never forget.

I ask...no, I beg all US Citizen on this forum to write his/her Congressional Representative and urge them to cut ALL military aid to Egypt. Those tanks used to mow down innocent people and those bullets fired at innocent people were paid for by US tax dollars.

I also beg that you don't make this a secterian issue as this will only help accomplish what SCAF & the Islamists are trying to do. There were many good and decent Muslims protesting alongside Copts that were also killed and injured.

May the Lord guide the hearts of moderate Muslims to share Egypt justly with their Coptic brothers and sisters.  May all Orthodox Christians pray and fast for the Coptic Orthodox faithful of Egypt.

[recent convert]

Lord, have mercy! Turn the evil doers from their wickedness and sear their conscience with burning coals to bring them to repentance and that they may know the Lord Jesus Christ before it is too late. May we boldly pray for the Copts' protection and through the intercessions of the Theotokos.

[zekarja]

Kyrie, eleison!

[Salpy]

This is a very good article by the Associated Press, putting this latest event in context:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT_CHRISTIANS_UNDER_SIEGE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-10-10-17-27-48

Among other things, it documents several attacks, including deadly ones, that have been perpetrated against the Copts in the past year.

[Balthasar]

I also beg that you don't make this a secterian issue as this will only help accomplish what SCAF & the Islamists are trying to do. There were many good and decent Muslims protesting alongside Copts that were also killed and injured.

We only read this sort of 'politically correct' statements in the MSM. The case is not about the Muslims, it is about the persecuted brothers and sisters of ours. Besides, only a bad Muslim can be a good Muslim.

By the way, Sunday's tragedy is already forgotten by the MSM, as the NEWS-makers prefer dedicating air times to the alleged assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Well, the life of one Saudi is more precious than 10 million Coptic Christians. They'll pay dearly for that!

[dzheremi]

I hope you will all take a moment to watch this video of the beautiful and wise words of Bishop Moussa and Father Tadros Yacob, from the funerals of the Alexandrian martyrs following the bombings in January: Bishop Moussa and Father Tadros Yacoub words in the funeral prayer for Alexandria martyrs

Their words provide a proper perspective befitting this time. God bless and protect our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt and around the world. Give rest to the souls of the martyrs, and comfort to their families and all who are grieving.

[CoptoGeek]

We only read this sort of 'politically correct' statements in the MSM. The case is not about the Muslims, it is about the persecuted brothers and sisters of ours. Besides, only a bad Muslim can be a good Muslim.

What are you talking about? So its better to do what, turn against all the Muslims in Egypt and make them all the enemy? No wonder the Copts there want us to stay out of their business. They have to live with the consequences of the likes of your brave, heroic 'non-pc' words.

[mabsoota]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEkha6kipvI&feature=channel_video_title

if anyone is feeling strong emotionally and wants to know what actually happened then watch this.
may God give peace to all who suffer and fill them with His love and His peace which is beyond understanding.

[Salpy]

Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church has sent a message of condolences to Pope Shenouda:

To: His Holiness SHENOUDA III

Pope of Alexandria and

Patriarch of the Throne of St. Mark in All Africa and the Middle East

Your Holiness,

It has deeply grieved me to learn about the new attacks against Christians in Egypt and the bloody clashes in Cairo which have left several scores of people dead and over three hundred of people injured.

The Russian Orthodox Church knows not from hearsay what discrimination and persecution of believers are. The carcases of defiled churches still remaining in our land remind us to this day of the terrible years of persecution. That is why we feel so strongly for the suffering of our brothers in faith in Egypt. At an hour of trial, we turn to Almighty God with prayer asking Him to reinforce the spiritual resources of Egyptian Christians in their efforts to stand for their faith and to preserve their Christian identity.

We have repeatedly called upon all the major world powers and religious leaders to condemn the persecution of Christians and called the Egyptian authorities to do all that is necessary to ensure real freedom of religion and security for all citizens regardless of their religious or ethnic background.

You can read the whole message here:

http://www.mospat.ru/en/2011/10/12/news49593/

[Salpy]

Another statement by HH Kirill on the matter, expressing support for the Copts:

Patriarch Kirill’s statement on disturbances in Cairo

12.10.2011 · Inter-Christian relations, New documents, Patriarchal Ministry 

In his statement published below, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church expresses support for the suffering Egyptian Christians.

‘The Russian Orthodox Church has followed the developments in Egypt with concern and bitterness. Blood has been spilt and Christian churches have been destroyed again. There is another manifestation of growing intolerance towards Christians and their legal and physical vulnerability in the Egyptian society.

Our Church knows from her recent history what the suffering of innocent people and destruction of churches are. We raise our voice in defence of our Egyptian brothers in faith and call upon the world community not to be indifferent to this lawlessness. The United Nations and other international organizations and leading world powers capable of influencing the policy of the new authorities in Egypt should unequivocally come out against the persecution of Christians and do everything to help establish interreligious peace and security in the region.

The tragic ordeals the Egyptian Christians are undergoing so courageously are links in the same chain which has already brought out a new and ever growing wave of emigration. Egypt is a country in which the Christian and Muslim communities have lived together for centuries. The aggression against Christians lies on the conscience of destructive radical forces whose motives are not at all religious. We appeal to the leaders of the Islamic world to express a clear condemnation of the violence against Christians, to respect their right to openly confess their faith and to preserve their religious and cultural traditions. At an hour when the very future of Christian-Muslim dialogue is threatened, religious leaders should demonstrate in deed their commitment to peace and mutual understanding.

Read the whole message here:

http://www.mospat.ru/en/2011/10/12/news49598/

[Pikhristos Aftonf]

my respect for Patriarch Kirill increased so much after reading this... i am honoured that he called us his brothers in faith 

[Severian]

my respect for Patriarch Kirill increased so much after reading this... i am honoured that he called us his brothers in faith 

Likewise.

[Fr.Kyrillos]

my respect for Patriarch Kirill increased so much after reading this... i am honoured that he called us his brothers in faith 

Indeed there is a wonderful and beautiful fraternity between Russians and Copts because they both know suffering and persecution.  I experienced this recently among some Russian clergy (even in ROCOR) which made me realize that the "real world" is very different than what is presented often times on internet forums.

Let me share with you a beautiful story from a just a couple of weeks ago.

I was invited along with all my congregation from St. Marina Coptic Orthodox Church (Irvine, CA) to attend a local Serbian Church where the Myrrh-Streaming Icon of Hawaii (which belongs to ROCOR) was visiting.  This was the second time I went due to the wonderful relationship between me and the local Serbian priest.  This time I came with about 125 Copts from my parish after Sunday liturgy.

While we were gathered, Reader Nektarios, the guardian of the icon, related to us Copts the following story with sincere emotion...

When the Holy Theotokos was appearing in Warraq Cairo (Dec. 2009), Reader Nektarios received a phone call from a friend that happened to be visiting Egypt. This friend was among the several thousand people standing outside the Church when the Mother of God appeared.  He called Reader Nektarios in great amazement describing the details of how the Holy Virgin looked and how she smiled at the people (he said the videos don't do any justice to what they saw in person). She was appearing while he was on the phone...He asked Reader Nektarios, "what is the icon doing right now?"  Reader Nektarios responded that the icon stopped streaming!  Then a few moments later, there was great sound from the crowd and Reader Nektarios asked what happened. His friend told him that the Mother of God disappeared. His friend asked a second time what was happening to the icon and Reader Nektarios responded that it began to stream again!  A third roar from the crowd came when the Holy Virgin appeared again, this time on the bell tower (first time was on the dome) and the friend asked a third time about the icon and Reader Nektarios indicated that it stopped streaming!  For Reader Nektarios, it was clear that the moments when the Mother of God was appearing in Egypt, the icon stopped streaming.  He told the story with an obvious great love for the Copts and was certain about how much the Mother of God loves the children of Egypt.

Another great link between the Russians and Copts...I know some will not accept the story or its conclusions, but there it is for you to make what you will of it.

In Christ,
Fr. Kyrillos

[Hiwot]

Glory be to God! how wonderful to hear these things Father!

[Pikhristos Aftonf]

Amen, truly now is the time for all christians to unite and forget our petty differences.

[CoptoGeek]

Beautiful Story, Abouna.


CYC has several interviews and video footage with English subtitles

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/christianyouthchannel

[CoptoGeek]

Here is the Maronite Patriarch, Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, giving very kind words of condolences and fraternal support. I couldn't find a version with English subtitles, but its worth posting for our Arabic speakers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7eGX45HHo4

He's currently travelling the West, in part, to raise awareness regarding the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

[Balthasar]

"Christians are Sons of Dogs" has shouted the fake Egyptian soldier. Everything is the opposite with these ZOMBIES. As an Arabic speaker he was probably articulating DOG as GOD. They surely hate dog and God.

http://tundratabloids.com/2011/10/bbc-video-christians-are-sons-of-dogs.html

[Balthasar]

Fascinating article:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/A-New-Crisis-for-Egypts-Copts.html?c=y&page=1

[Lizzie]

His Grace Bishop Suriel's (Bishop of Melbourne & its affiliated regions, Australia) interview with local news channel:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1595519/Egyptian-Ambassador-should-be-sacked-says-bishop

[dzheremi]

I love, love, love Bishop Suriel. God bless him and all the bishops in the diaspora who have stood with the Copts in Egypt.

I am under HG Bishop Youssef of the Southern U.S. diocese. He has written this on the diocese website: Church Construction and Symbolism Threaten No One (Possibly written before the recent violence, after the crosses on Mar Gerges church in upper Egypt were removed, but the Muslims burnt it down anyway.)

I am not sure about the rules of copying from articles here, but this part gave me pause:

The Lord Jesus Christ was rejected in His own country, yet He did not accept death at the will of His opposition nor did He allow them to provoke Him, but at the Will of His Father in Heaven only did He accept the fate of earthly death. This is the example we must follow. We must not recklessly abandon the Will of our Father in Heaven and fall into the hands of the opposition; rather we must and should rise above those hands which seek to do us harm.

Amen. Lord have mercy.

[Fr.Kyrillos]

This is a very clear video of one of the military vehicles running over protesters...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUwaktM-qjs&feature=player_embedded#!

[peteprint]

What I saw this weekend I can never forget.

I ask...no, I beg all US Citizen on this forum to write his/her Congressional Representative and urge them to cut ALL military aid to Egypt. Those tanks used to mow down innocent people and those bullets fired at innocent people were paid for by US tax dollars.

I also beg that you don't make this a secterian issue as this will only help accomplish what SCAF & the Islamists are trying to do. There were many good and decent Muslims protesting alongside Copts that were also killed and injured.

I will do this right now.  God Bless His suffering people in Egypt.

[biro]

Good suggestion on the letters. I will do that as well.

[sainthieu]

Dutch site:

Maspero survivors finally testify: army shot at unarmed demonstrators without provocation

In a large press conference held Thursday afternoon, multiple civilian eyewitnesses recounted to reporters what they saw on the night of 9 October, when a peaceful march of thousands of Coptic and Muslims protesters, which was headed towards the TV headquarters at Maspero near Tahrir square to demand equal rights for Egypt’s 8 million Christians, turned into deadly clashes with the military police, leaving behind 24 protesters dead, 329 injured and a divided and confused public.

Plus:

Excellent Video: Ezra Levant Interview on the recent attack on the Copts Oct 11 2011

[minasoliman]

Good suggestion on the letters. I will do that as well.

There's a couple of things out there I received that could help facilitate this process.  These are the ones I signed to:

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/cut-13b-aid-annually-egypt-unless-they-bring-justice-killers-massacre-coptic-christian/rr471DrY

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/protect-political-and-religious-rights-egypt/BxTnvvdj

http://www.petition2congress.com/5297/us-funded-egyptian-military-kills-civilians/

(this last one I like)

And I hate to turn this political, but for any American out there who feels we need to cut spending, this can be part of it.

[Salpy]

I signed the last one also.  I think it is important especially to reach out to Congress.

[mabsoota]

this one is for the uk:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/equality-and-freedom-from-persecution-for-copts.html
may God guide us and protect all those protesting and praying around the world.

[Salpy]

There was a peaceful demonstration today in Washington D.C. protesting what happened in Egypt. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/coptic-christians-protest-outside-white-house-against-abuses-in-egypt/2011/10/19/gIQAxRvByL_story.html

I learned on Sunday morning that the Copts in Los Angeles had planned a demonstration outside the Federal Building, but I was not able to go.  I haven't seen anything on the internet about it.

I encourage people to post here about any upcoming demonstrations or events having to do with the situation in Egypt.  It is important to let people know about these events ahead of time, so that as many people as possible can go to them.

[ialmisry]

my respect for Patriarch Kirill increased so much after reading this... i am honoured that he called us his brothers in faith 

Indeed there is a wonderful and beautiful fraternity between Russians and Copts because they both know suffering and persecution.  I experienced this recently among some Russian clergy (even in ROCOR) which made me realize that the "real world" is very different than what is presented often times on internet forums.

Let me share with you a beautiful story from a just a couple of weeks ago.

I was invited along with all my congregation from St. Marina Coptic Orthodox Church (Irvine, CA) to attend a local Serbian Church where the Myrrh-Streaming Icon of Hawaii (which belongs to ROCOR) was visiting.  This was the second time I went due to the wonderful relationship between me and the local Serbian priest.  This time I came with about 125 Copts from my parish after Sunday liturgy.

While we were gathered, Reader Nektarios, the guardian of the icon, related to us Copts the following story with sincere emotion...

When the Holy Theotokos was appearing in Warraq Cairo (Dec. 2009), Reader Nektarios received a phone call from a friend that happened to be visiting Egypt. This friend was among the several thousand people standing outside the Church when the Mother of God appeared.  He called Reader Nektarios in great amazement describing the details of how the Holy Virgin looked and how she smiled at the people (he said the videos don't do any justice to what they saw in person). She was appearing while he was on the phone...He asked Reader Nektarios, "what is the icon doing right now?"  Reader Nektarios responded that the icon stopped streaming!  Then a few moments later, there was great sound from the crowd and Reader Nektarios asked what happened. His friend told him that the Mother of God disappeared. His friend asked a second time what was happening to the icon and Reader Nektarios responded that it began to stream again!  A third roar from the crowd came when the Holy Virgin appeared again, this time on the bell tower (first time was on the dome) and the friend asked a third time about the icon and Reader Nektarios indicated that it stopped streaming!  For Reader Nektarios, it was clear that the moments when the Mother of God was appearing in Egypt, the icon stopped streaming.  He told the story with an obvious great love for the Copts and was certain about how much the Mother of God loves the children of Egypt.

Another great link between the Russians and Copts...I know some will not accept the story or its conclusions, but there it is for you to make what you will of it.

In Christ,
Fr. Kyrillos

IIRC, the main altar in the Coptic Patriarchate in 'Abbassiyyah, Cairo was a gift from the Russian Orthodox Church.

[CoptoGeek]

Viewpoint: Egypt's Copts must not submit to grief
by Yousef Sidhoum, Editor of Al-Watani

excerpt:

"During the uprising, all Egyptians flocked to Tahrir Square calling for reforms to bring social justice, more jobs and the cancellation of forged parliamentary elections. Muslims and Christians were bound by the same challenges and aspirations.

In the square a strong, unprecedented bond of national solidarity was forged. This amazing bond moved the hearts and souls of Egyptians all over the country - little wonder, as previously it had been absent in daily life except when Egypt played in international football matches.

'Discriminatory tide'

As a Coptic Christian, deep down in my heart there lies a wound that does not heal. It has festered over more than three decades as the grievances of Egypt's Copts have mounted.

In the 1970s, our good-natured, amicable Egyptian character began to change. Copts started to feel that they were rejected, marginalised, and denied their full citizenship rights both by the state and their Muslim fellow citizens, merely because of their religious denomination.

A strong wave of fanatic, fundamentalist Islam invaded our country, a vicious, discriminatory tide that flooded state bodies, official establishments and educational institutions and affected Muslim clergy. It resulted in legislative inequalities and selective rules that had an Islamic flavour and meant Copts were treated as second-class citizens"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15385063

[minasoliman]

Viewpoint: Egypt's Copts must not submit to grief
by Yousef Sidhoum, Editor of Al-Watani

excerpt:

"During the uprising, all Egyptians flocked to Tahrir Square calling for reforms to bring social justice, more jobs and the cancellation of forged parliamentary elections. Muslims and Christians were bound by the same challenges and aspirations.

In the square a strong, unprecedented bond of national solidarity was forged. This amazing bond moved the hearts and souls of Egyptians all over the country - little wonder, as previously it had been absent in daily life except when Egypt played in international football matches.

'Discriminatory tide'

As a Coptic Christian, deep down in my heart there lies a wound that does not heal. It has festered over more than three decades as the grievances of Egypt's Copts have mounted.

In the 1970s, our good-natured, amicable Egyptian character began to change. Copts started to feel that they were rejected, marginalised, and denied their full citizenship rights both by the state and their Muslim fellow citizens, merely because of their religious denomination.

A strong wave of fanatic, fundamentalist Islam invaded our country, a vicious, discriminatory tide that flooded state bodies, official establishments and educational institutions and affected Muslim clergy. It resulted in legislative inequalities and selective rules that had an Islamic flavour and meant Copts were treated as second-class citizens"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15385063

I think he makes a very important conclusion...we need to build alliances with moderate and liberal Muslims to put the fundamentalists in check.

[Salpy]

(AINA) — Hundreds of Coptic Christians mobilized on Tuesday in front of the Monastery of the Virgin and St. John the Beloved, located on the Desert Road from Cairo to Ismailia. Although the Monastery has the necessary permits, the army had sent a message to the monastery that they would come on the next day, October 25, to demolish its fence, which guards it from unauthorized visits and criminals.

The official website of the Monastery warned of threats of a ” new massacre” by the Egyptian Armed Forces, and the removal of its fence, pointing out that the Monastery was built in 2002 and is under the supervision of the secretariat of H.H. Pope Shenouda.

When the Army vehicles with demolishing equipment arrived at the monastery, they were met by priests, monks, deacons and Copts all dressed up in white for mass, holding wooden crosses, praying and singing hymns.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2011/10/coptic-christians-protect-monastery-from-egyptian-army-assault/

[Pikhristos Aftonf]

The Coptic Orthodox church's Diocese in Melbourne, led by HG bishop Suriel are organising a Vigil in Federation square on the 4th of November between 5.30 and 7.30 PM. the dress code is all white to highlight the pureness and peacefulness of the original Maspero protest as well as the vigil itself.
More information is available on HG's blog at:
http://bishopsuriel.blogspot.com/2011/10/vigil-4-peace.html
I hope and pray that unlike prior protests on the part of the Diocese of Melbourne, this one would yield some results or Government action.

[minasoliman]

http://www.copticworld.org/articles/467/

Members of the clergy, Coptic Lawyer's Association, Coptic Solidarity, and CopticWorld as well as Coptic representatives from Michigan and other states met with White House officials today in a closed door meeting to address recent events in Egypt concerning Copts.

[Salpy]

It's being reported that in mid-October a Coptic high school student was attacked and killed in his school for refusing to cover the cross tattooed on his wrist, and for refusing to take off the cross he wore around his neck:

Today the parents of the 17-year-old Christian student Ayman Nabil Labib, broke their silence, confirming that their son was murdered on October 16, in "cold blood because he refused to take off his crucifix as ordered by his Muslim teacher." Nabil Labib, the father, said in a taped video interview with Copts United NGO, that his son had a cross tattooed on his wrist as per Coptic tradition, as well as another cross which he wore under his clothes.

Both parents confirmed that Ayman's classmates, who were present during the assault and whom they met at the hospital and during the funeral, said that while Ayman was in the classroom he was told to cover up his tattooed wrist cross. He refused and defiantly got out the second cross which he wore under his shirt. "The teacher nearly chocked by son and some Muslim students joined in the beating," said his mother.

According to Ayman's father, eyewitnesses told him that his son was not beaten up in the school yard as per the official story, but in the classroom. "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. When one of the supervisors took him to his room, Ayman was still breathing. The ambulance transported him from there dead, one hour later."

http://www.aina.org/news/20111030133621.htm


This reminds me of a young Russian soldier who was tortured and beheaded for refusing to remove his cross:

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,25994.0.html


Holy Martyrs, pray for us!

[Salpy]

Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church is speaking up about the recent massacres and what should be done about it:

Moscow, November 1, Interfax – Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations has accused the West of failing to stand up for Egyptian Christians during recent violence against them and has slammed Western governments for putting economic interests before human life.

...

He called for Christians to come together “to defend their brothers and sisters who are suffering in various regions.”

“If this doesn’t happen, we will look even less convincing in the eyes of this world. On the other hand, by defending our fellow believers, we will strengthen our positions, will become more unified, and hence closer to one another,” he said.

...

“Christian Churches, primarily the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and also the ancient Eastern Churches, should come together today and join forces. We have the imperative need to create a community of Churches following the apostolic tradition where we would together discuss problems and challenges of the modern world,” the metropolitan said.

He also suggested setting up “joint informal information structures that would provide objective, fresh and verified information on events that are of determining significance for the future of the Church and the world.”

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2011/11/metropolitan-hilarion-accuses-west-of-leaving-egypt-christians-in-the-lurch/

[CoptoGeek]

I thought this was an excellent interview. But its with a...gasp...Protestant Minister, so any Hyperdox should stear clear. 

The Christians of Egypt, Part I
November 15, 2011 - 12:27 am - by Michael J. Totten

Ramez Atallah: ...I’d like for the Western press to fight for the rights of Muslims and forget the Christians.

MJT: Really? Why?

Ramez Atallah: Because the minute moderate Muslims are okay in Egypt, Christians can breathe. Christians can live. If there are no more moderates in power in Egypt, Christians will be very limited. But they won’t be as badly off as the Muslims. We are a sort of protected species in Egypt. We will suffer less than the Muslims.

http://pjmedia.com/michaeltotten/2011/11/15/the-christians-of-egypt-part-i/

[CoptoGeek]

Cairo’s Christians worry about Egypt’s next chapter
By David Ignatius, Published: November 8, Washington Post

This issue of sectarian tension lurks behind the election campaign now being waged across Egypt. People don’t often speak about it directly, but it’s an abiding fear here — as in most other countries shaken by the Arab Spring. The question is whether, as democracy empowers Islamist parties across the Arab world, Christian minorities will have a viable future.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cairos-christians-worry-about-egypts-next-chapter/2011/11/08/gIQAk3CI3M_story.html

[Balthasar]

"Clashes along Egypt Christian march injure 29"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45342929/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/?

How cowardly the MSM formulates the headlines!

And the following was posted exactly on this very day, 8 years ago.

"Copts Attacked in Egypt"

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,2238.0.html

[Balthasar]

The cunning snake shading its skin....

"Egypt Islamists vow to protect churches on Orthodox Christmas"

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1683306.php/Egypt-Islamists-vow-to-protect-churches-on-Orthodox-Christmas?

[Salpy]

Maybe the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis are feeling sorry about all the Coptic homes, businesses and churches they have burnt and bombed over the past year.  I doubt it, though. 

Here is another story that just came out about Muslim villagers burning Christian homes in Upper Egypt:

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/575331

Dozens of residents of the village of Baheeg in Assiut, Upper Egypt, burnt three houses owned by a Christian family after a Christian villager allegedly published cartoons mocking Islam on his Facebook account.

A number of Muslim students attacked their Coptic classmate for posting the cartoons, a Muslim student told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The Muslim students attacked the Coptic student on Thursday at Monqebad Secondary School in Assiut. Eyewitnesses said the military intervened to break up the fight and escorted the Coptic youth and his family away from the village. Later, Muslim villagers set fire to the family’s houses.

[Salpy]

^ The Coptic student who allegedly posted the cartoon has now been arrested by the police and his father's business has been torched.  The student denies putting the cartoon on his Facebook page:

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2011/12/egyptian-muslims-christians-clash-over-prophet-cartoon/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45833888#.Tv908HbxPPM

[Salpy]

Threats are being made of a New Year's attack against Coptic Christians:

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2011/12/egypts-military-on-alert-for-new-years-attack-on-christians/

Update at 6:25 p.m. ET: Facebook has apparently taken down the account of at least one group threatening a New Year’s attack on Egyptian Christians. An Arab-language Facebook page (not linked to in the story but monitored by msnbc.com reporters) no longer loads.

[Balthasar]

This morning, at least 800 Salafists gathered with many Muslim "spectators" at the church of St. Macarius in Bahtim, Egypt. They then stormed the church and occupied the area. They forbade the priests and the Copts, who wanted to enter the church for the Epiphany Mass.

Lord Have Mercy!

[Salpy]

^ The incident is described in this article:

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/01/muslims-in-egypt-burn-christian-homes-and-shops-attack-church/

The article also describes the burning of more Coptic homes and businesses in another village, and how the Salafis are preventing Copts from voting in parliamentary elections there.

[peteprint]

I wish that we could bring all our Christian brothers and sisters out of Egypt (and any other Islamic nations where they are suffering persecution) and let them immigrate to the West.  Their suffering has gone on far too long, and they would be a blessing to the nations of Europe, North America, Australia, etc.

Lord have mercy!

[dzheremi]

It is a blessing of God that the majority of Copts remain in Egypt, and it is a blessing of God that those who are now in the West have come here.

[mabsoota]

yes, may God send more of us to difficult countries to share the blessing.
when we share with Christ in His sufferings, then we also share in His glory.

[Salpy]

   

(AINA) -- A mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked Copts in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat (el-Ameriya), Alexandria this afternoon. Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Two Copts and a Muslim were injured. The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone. The Coptic man, Mourad Samy Guirgis, surrendered to the police this morning morning for his protection.

According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrators were bearded men in white gowns. "They were Salafists, and some of were from the Muslim Brotherhood," according to one witness. It was reported that terrorized women and children who lost their homes were in the streets without any place to go.

According to Father Boktor Nashed from St. George's Church in el-Nahdah, a meeting between Muslim and Christian representatives was supposed to take place in the evening in Kobry-el-Sharbat. But, by 3 P.M. a Muslim mob looted and torched the home of Mourad Samy Guirgis, as well as the home of his family and three homes of Coptic neighbors. A number of Coptic-owned shops and businesses were also looted and torched. "We contacted security forces, but they arrived very, very late," Said Father Nashad. The fire brigade was prevented from going into the village by the Muslims and the fires were left to burn themselves out. "Those who lost their home, left the village," said Father Nashed.

http://www.aina.org/news/20120127193942.htm

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- An Egyptian court has ordered a 16-year old Christian girl to be held in a state-owned care home, instead of returning her to her family, allegedly for expressing her wish to convert to Islam. She is to be held in state care until she reaches the age of 18. The decision has been widely criticized by Copts, who say it encourages Islamists to continue unabated the abduction of Christian minors for conversion to Islam.

"The decision taken by a prosecutor in Boulaq El Dakrour district, Giza, makes him an abductor and makes the law an accomplice to the crime," said Dr. Oliver, a Coptic activist. "What this prosecutor committed is a crime -- he legitimized child abduction and detention."

Dr. Oliver explained that these crimes are committed by thugs, criminals and kidnappers of children, and when the State legitimizes them it makes itself a partner. In addition, placing a girl under care for allegedly wishing to convert to Islam while still a minor is tantamount to abduction by the State.

http://www.aina.org/news/20120124192832.htm

[Balthasar]

Well, one of the most crucial mistakes the Coptic community in Egypt made, was its naive stand on believing in the Arab nationalism. I think because of that they were unable to establish a geographic area of concentration. This was a big mistake!

This article is an interesting summary of Coptic life in Egypt.

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Christians-in-Egypt-Are-Holding-Their-Breath-Part-2-Kurt-Werthmuller-01-26-2012.html


By the way, Abuna Zakaria Boutros is to be admired and prized for the bravery, courage and honesty, for being able to bring millions of dead Muslim souls alive.

May the Lord give strength and guidance to our Coptic brothers and sisters in Egypt!

[minasoliman]

Well, one of the most crucial mistakes the Coptic community in Egypt made, was its naive stand on believing in the Arab nationalism. I think because of that they were unable to establish a geographic area of concentration. This was a big mistake!

I disagree.  It's not a mistake.  Whether Arab nationalism or not, we'll always get Muslim religious bigots.  But nationalism is to be encouraged if you don't want to isolate the moderate and liberal Muslims.

Love your country, serve her, and don't forsake your religion.  This is always the standard we must live by.

[dzheremi]

Is it possible, though, that Arab nationalism in particular could be used as something of a "Trojan horse" for the goals of the Islamists, given the identification of the vast majority of the Arab nation with Islam, and hence Islam's eternal priority in the minds of many? For instance, I have seen many a secular/nationalist-minded Arab praise George Habash (himself a secularist of Christian background) or even Fairuz (for her contribution to the art of the Arab world; she is certainly no secularist!), but when push comes to shove, Islam comes out as the great pacifier, not the supposed unity between nationals of all religions. Friends of mine from Iraq and Lebanon have described it as such, anyway (e.g., "Hezbollah claims to the Lebanese resistance, but if you listen to X speech by Hassan Nasrallah he calls for an Islamic state").

I don't know. I don't trust nationalism to protect anybody, but I am not from the Middle East, so I don't want to sound like I'm making definitive pronouncements about how things work. I have in past referred to Arab nationalism as "Islamism for Muslims who can't grow beards", but perhaps that was a bit hasty... (though I haven't really seen any evidence to the contrary yet, either)

[CoptoGeek]

We need to be careful not to confuse Egyptian Nationalism with the Pan-Arab Nationalism of Nasser, the Ba'athists, and the Ikhwan ("Toz fe Misr" as one of their leaders proudly stated). Many prominent Copts allied themselves with Saad Zaghloul for Egyptian Independence; very few supported Nasser and with good reason.

I'll leave it at that so as not to push this thread off-topic.

[dzheremi]

That's a good point. All of the Copts I know with the exception of one are I guess what you could call "Egyptian Nationalists". Then again, I don't think any of them consider themselves Arab, either. Hm.

[CoptoGeek]

Oh, dzheremi! That's another can of worms    OK, here I go... We are Arabs in so far as we speak the language and are part of the Arab cultural milieu. I think its silly to argue otherwise, but yes, many Copts in the West do seem to resent being called "Arabs". I personally don't mind. I'm an Arab, I'm a Copt, and I'm an American. When I used to visit a local Antiochian Church which was a mixture of different ethnicities as well as many converts, by the end of coffee hour I'd usually wind up with the other Arabs; Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, even as my Arabic is quite broken. We just sort of click together in a unique way.

But you must also remember, this Arabness was forced on us. There was a time when to speak the Coptic language was to have your tongue literally cut off.  And Egyptians were somewhat isolated compared to the Levantine Arabs. These nations of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordon, and Iraq as they appear today are all basically modern constructs of the Brits & French. Yes, there was a region of Syria or of Mesopotamia or of Lebanon, etc. But there were no hard borders and such, there was more free flow of people (with the possible exception of the Maronites and Assyrians who found safe haven in the mountains) among those regions for many hundreds of years.  Whereas most Egyptians never left the Nile Valley until recently, mostly to the West for opportunities and the Gulf for work.

One last thought, the pan-Arabism I mentioned before can lead to the Pan-Islamism you mentioned and indeed has. But Egyptian Nationalism, call it Egyptian Arab Nationalism or whatever, has always been about the Copts and Muslims working together by it's very definition. Copts and moderate Muslims share the same goals for Egypt. The Islamists concern is for a return to the caliphate, this is not nationalism whatever they try to call it.

[minasoliman]

I also want to mention that there has been non-Chalcedonian Arabian Gulf Christian Kingdoms, and they spoke Arabic (and some Greek).  There were bishops that were named Ahmad, Mustafa, etc.  This church has become extinct now, but can you imagine the liturgical tradition, how that might have sounded?

So, Arabic was a Christian language before it became Islamic.  Let's not forget that.  This whole argument "I'm not Arab, I'm Egyptian" is a useless argument today, and it wastes time with what truly matters.  There's new scholars now working on the "Copto-Arabic" Church fathers, that is the Church fathers of the Coptic Church who wrote in classical Arabic to teach the people who have already been Arabicized.

[Balthasar]

Well, one of the most crucial mistakes the Coptic community in Egypt made, was its naive stand on believing in the Arab nationalism. I think because of that they were unable to establish a geographic area of concentration. This was a big mistake!

I disagree.  It's not a mistake.  Whether Arab nationalism or not, we'll always get Muslim religious bigots.  But nationalism is to be encouraged if you don't want to isolate the moderate and liberal Muslims.

Love your country, serve her, and don't forsake your religion.  This is always the standard we must live by.

Why do the Copts have to pretend they Arabs, which they are not?

If the Copts had won the battle in the past, it would have been right to say strategically they played a very wise role. I am sure, one way or the other, one day, they are going to win. But at the moment it doesn't look like like they are winning. If 100.000 Copts left Egypt in the past 10 months, there is something terribly wrong with their handling of the situation.

On the other hand look at to south of Egyptistan, Sudan, the Southern people fought 'from their enclave' for their freedom,, and it took them 'only' 40 years to get to where they are now. Imagine the position of the Copts, if they had the Alexandria, or the Aswan region only for themselves?  They would have dominated the whole area in all aspects of life. They would have kept their beautiful Coptic language and superior tradition in a pure and unspoiled manner. Me thinks so...

[CoptoGeek]

We can speculate all we want about past events, but that has no effect on the world as it currently is. There are no Coptic enclaves, there is no Coptic "Phalange". The Copts IN EGYPT have no desire for a seperate Coptic "Nation" in a geographic sense. They simply want to live in peace with their Muslim neighbors and have their full rights as citizens of Egypt. This is the goal, not some fantasy dreamland that those outside Egypt, who live in comfort and freedom, want to project on them.

[minasoliman]

Well, one of the most crucial mistakes the Coptic community in Egypt made, was its naive stand on believing in the Arab nationalism. I think because of that they were unable to establish a geographic area of concentration. This was a big mistake!

I disagree.  It's not a mistake.  Whether Arab nationalism or not, we'll always get Muslim religious bigots.  But nationalism is to be encouraged if you don't want to isolate the moderate and liberal Muslims.

Love your country, serve her, and don't forsake your religion.  This is always the standard we must live by.

Why do the Copts have to pretend they Arabs, which they are not?

If the Copts had won the battle in the past, it would have been right to say strategically they played a very wise role. I am sure, one way or the other, one day, they are going to win. But at the moment it doesn't look like like they are winning. If 100.000 Copts left Egypt in the past 10 months, there is something terribly wrong with their handling of the situation.

On the other hand look at to south of Egyptistan, Sudan, the Southern people fought 'from their enclave' for their freedom,, and it took them 'only' 40 years to get to where they are now. Imagine the position of the Copts, if they had the Alexandria, or the Aswan region only for themselves?  They would have dominated the whole area in all aspects of life. They would have kept their beautiful Coptic language and superior tradition in a pure and unspoiled manner. Me thinks so...

No one is pretending to be Arabic.  The Egyptian Muslims are also Coptic (in fact, you can call them Coptic Muslims, since Coptic is not a religion, but a race), it just so happens that somewhere down the line, they became Muslim.  Therefore, I treat Egyptian Muslims as if they were my brothers and my sisters, even though they left the faith.  That is why both Coptic people have EGYPTIAN pride, pride for their own nation.  It just so happens today we speak Arabic, and we've naturally assimilated to Arabic mannerisms, just as I have assimilated to American mannerisms, making me an American, as much as Copts are Arabs.  It's too late to speculate on "preserving the Coptic tongue" and "oh my God, the ancient language of the Pharaohs is gone" and "I have to speak this stupid terrorist language."  All of that is a waste of time and energy.  The energy is on the faith now.  It matters not if it's Arabic or Coptic.

The Copts that live there, there are sooo many that do not want to leave, because no matter how much bad goes on there, Egypt is their home.  We as immigrants and children of immigrants have a different situation.  We sit on our comfortable chairs and like to waste time talking about whether we're Arab or not.  But if you understand and talk to the Coptic people in Egypt, you will not find that form of bigotry in their hearts.  They see the other Muslims as one and the same blood, and that is the truth of history.  Therefore, it is stupid to think we should have a separate nation.  We deal with whatever government we deal with, and God always protects His Church.  To cry for a separate nation, and to see what other nations do is just carnal desire after another, and we make ourselves no better than the persecutors.

[dzheremi]

It's too late to speculate on "preserving the Coptic tongue" and "oh my God, the ancient language of the Pharaohs is gone" and "I have to speak this stupid terrorist language."  All of that is a waste of time and energy.  The energy is on the faith now.  It matters not if it's Arabic or Coptic.

Forgive me for being so bold as a non-Copt and non-Arab(ized) person, but I don't think this is true. Or, rather, if it were true, there would not be such a commitment to preserving the Coptic tongue in its liturgical setting as I know there is both in the diaspora and at home in Egypt. People may assign different meanings to the use of the language (whether we are talking about Coptic or Arabic or any other language), but to say people who claim not to be Arab are resentful of the Arabic language or the Arabic culture...that's not something I've seen, even from the staunchest of the "We're not Arabs!" faction. To give an example that is not from the diaspora (so that it can not be attributed to children of the diaspora projecting their ideology onto Copts in Egypt), HG Bishop Thomas of el-Qusiya has said quite emphatically that he rejects the Arab identity, but I think you will find that his explanation of his stance is not in any way bigoted or built on delusion that he is anything but an Arabic-speaking Egyptian. (There are other linguistic and cultural minorities in Egypt for whom a similar dichotomy probably exists, such as the Nubians; they are also Egyptian, of course, and yet I doubt anyone would claim that they are "wasting their time" in asserting their cultural and ethnolinguistic rights, which is all that I've ever seen Copts anywhere in the world fighting for anyway.)

As for the fate of the language, the example of Modern Hebrew (as the most successful example of language revitalization in modern times) should be of much interest to those who push for the revitalization of Coptic, though they are definitely a minority. I am certainly not optimistic about the fate of any Middle Eastern or other minority language in today's world, but I will also say that virtually nothing is too late or impossible, and Coptic has many things going for it that other dead languages do not (e.g., a native writing system, a large corpus of texts covering a long period of development, many dictionaries and grammars describing many different dialects, a population that strongly identifies with it, etc).

[Salpy]

Coptic movement to protest 'forced eviction' of Amreyya Copts   

By   Heba Hesham / Daily News Egypt   February 1, 2012, 7:00 pm

CAIRO: The Maspero Youth Union announced that it will organize a protest Thursday in front of the Journalists' Syndicate, to condemn what they called violations against the Coptic residents of Sharbat village in the district of Amreyya in Alexandria.

The sectarian clashes reportedly erupted on Friday Jan. 27 when Mahmoud Te'ma, a barber, claimed that 34-year-old tailor Morad Gerges snapped pictures of Muslim girls in the fitting room of his workshop.  However, according to Ramy Kamel, a Coptic activist, Te'ma tried to extort money from Gerges, but when he refused Te’ma spread the rumor. Te'ma was later arrested, he said.

"A number of Muslim residents attacked Gerges' home and when they didn't find him, they abused his family," he said, claiming that the attack was led by Salafi leaders in the village.

...

Kamel claimed that the homes of 11 other Coptic families were also attacked, forcing them to flee to nearby villages where they have been in hiding since.

http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/coptic-movement-to-protest-forced-eviction-of-amreyya-copts.html

The article mentions other instances of forced eviction, and describes three "reconciliation meetings," which were really venues for the perpetrators to demand the further displacement of Copts.  This really is ethnic cleansing.  It needs to be brought before international human rights organizations.

[CoptoGeek]

U.S. Copts Decry Egyptian Persecution of Christians (VIDEO)
by Dexter Van Zile, January 30, 2012 2:03 pm

The audience also saw graphic footage of people killed at the riots in Maspero on Oct. 9, 2011. It was ugly footage that showed bodies crushed and dismembered by the armored personnel carriers driven by the Egyptian military. The audience looked at the screen unflinchingly.

The video, displayed on two large screens, demonstrated the power of technology to tell the Coptic story and Islamist violence. The Internet is filled with footage of the aftermath of the Maspero riots which began when Egyptian military personnel attacked Christians protesting the failure of the Egyptian government to protect their churches from attacks. During the non-violent protest, reporters on state-sponsored television called on Egyptians to defend the military from attacks by the Christians.

During his sermon, Very Reverend, Peter-Michael Preble, pastor of St. Michael’s Romanian Orthodox Church in Southbridge, Massachusetts told the audience, “Sitting here watching the video reminds me of how easy we have it in the United States.”

”We cannot sit here as human beings and not rise up to our feet and say … ‘The violence must stop,’” he proclaimed. He also warned the audience not to think that this activism will be done by someone else.

“The someone else is us,” he said.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/01/30/u-s-copts-decry-egyptian-persecution-of-christians/

[minasoliman]

It's too late to speculate on "preserving the Coptic tongue" and "oh my God, the ancient language of the Pharaohs is gone" and "I have to speak this stupid terrorist language."  All of that is a waste of time and energy.  The energy is on the faith now.  It matters not if it's Arabic or Coptic.

Forgive me for being so bold as a non-Copt and non-Arab(ized) person, but I don't think this is true. Or, rather, if it were true, there would not be such a commitment to preserving the Coptic tongue in its liturgical setting as I know there is both in the diaspora and at home in Egypt. People may assign different meanings to the use of the language (whether we are talking about Coptic or Arabic or any other language), but to say people who claim not to be Arab are resentful of the Arabic language or the Arabic culture...that's not something I've seen, even from the staunchest of the "We're not Arabs!" faction. To give an example that is not from the diaspora (so that it can not be attributed to children of the diaspora projecting their ideology onto Copts in Egypt), HG Bishop Thomas of el-Qusiya has said quite emphatically that he rejects the Arab identity, but I think you will find that his explanation of his stance is not in any way bigoted or built on delusion that he is anything but an Arabic-speaking Egyptian. (There are other linguistic and cultural minorities in Egypt for whom a similar dichotomy probably exists, such as the Nubians; they are also Egyptian, of course, and yet I doubt anyone would claim that they are "wasting their time" in asserting their cultural and ethnolinguistic rights, which is all that I've ever seen Copts anywhere in the world fighting for anyway.)

As for the fate of the language, the example of Modern Hebrew (as the most successful example of language revitalization in modern times) should be of much interest to those who push for the revitalization of Coptic, though they are definitely a minority. I am certainly not optimistic about the fate of any Middle Eastern or other minority language in today's world, but I will also say that virtually nothing is too late or impossible, and Coptic has many things going for it that other dead languages do not (e.g., a native writing system, a large corpus of texts covering a long period of development, many dictionaries and grammars describing many different dialects, a population that strongly identifies with it, etc).

We'll continue this over PM, since I don't want to derail the thread any longer.

[Balthasar]

Allegedly an influnetial Pakistani writing the following on Copts to the International Herald Tribune (NYtimes)

„The Qibtis of Egypt were Monophysites who believed in the ‘one nature’ of Christ. In October 451 AD, Pope Leo and Byzantine Emperor Marcian, convened the Council of Chalcedon on the eastern bank of the Bosphorus, in present-day Istanbul, to settle a dispute over the meaning of Christ between the eastern and western church. To the western church (based in Rome and Constantinople), the Chalcedonian definition of faith held that Christ existed ‘in two natures’— that he was both divine and human.

The Qibtis belonged to the Eastern Church and did not agree. As a result, they were ousted from Christianity as ‘Monophysites’ (from the Greek words for ‘single’ and ‘nature’). Their belief in Christ was closer to the Judaic and Islamic tradition. That could be one reason why they accepted Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as the true Prophet of God.“

Since when is Muhammad acceptd by Copts as a prophet?

http://tribune.com.pk/story/316014/copts-and-the-arab-spring/

[dzheremi]

Since Muslims are desperate for any outside vindication of their false prophet and false religion. They're insecure in that way.

[Salpy]

Two Coptic priests are being charged in connection with the Maspero Massacre, in which 28 Copts were killed by military, some of them run over by military personnel carriers.  This takes victim blaming to new heights.

http://www.aina.org/news/20120210142736.htm

(AINA) -- Two Coptic priests appeared yesterday before an investigations judge in connection with the events of the Maspero Massacre, in which 28 Copts were killed and 329 injured after being shot and run over by and military Armored Personnel Carriers (AINA 10-10-2011). Father Mattias Nasr of St. Mary's Church in Ezbet el-Nakhl in Greater Cairo and Father Filopateer Gameel of St. Mary's Church in Giza, both founding members of the Maspero Coptic Youth Union, which organized the October 9 demonstration, were accused of causing the death of military soldier Mohamed Ali Shetta, possession of weapons, use of force against the military, attempting to storm the Maspero TV building and incitement to violence.

As evidence, the investigating judge produced video footage collected from radical Islamic websites. "Between the footage there were parts in which a shaikh called on me to convert to Islam," said Father Filopateer.

Commenting on the investigations Father Matthias Nasr said: "I wonder about the conditions prevailing in Egypt now, whereby victims are being investigated, while the real perpetrators are ruling the country and continuing with their crimes against the Egyptian people and peaceful demonstrators everywhere."

[mabsoota]

Lord have mercy.
ya Rab irham.

[Salpy]

Coptic movement to protest 'forced eviction' of Amreyya Copts   

By   Heba Hesham / Daily News Egypt   February 1, 2012, 7:00 pm

CAIRO: The Maspero Youth Union announced that it will organize a protest Thursday in front of the Journalists' Syndicate, to condemn what they called violations against the Coptic residents of Sharbat village in the district of Amreyya in Alexandria.

The sectarian clashes reportedly erupted on Friday Jan. 27 when Mahmoud Te'ma, a barber, claimed that 34-year-old tailor Morad Gerges snapped pictures of Muslim girls in the fitting room of his workshop.  However, according to Ramy Kamel, a Coptic activist, Te'ma tried to extort money from Gerges, but when he refused Te’ma spread the rumor. Te'ma was later arrested, he said.

"A number of Muslim residents attacked Gerges' home and when they didn't find him, they abused his family," he said, claiming that the attack was led by Salafi leaders in the village.

...

Kamel claimed that the homes of 11 other Coptic families were also attacked, forcing them to flee to nearby villages where they have been in hiding since.

http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/human-a-civil-rights/coptic-movement-to-protest-forced-eviction-of-amreyya-copts.html

The article mentions other instances of forced eviction, and describes three "reconciliation meetings," which were really venues for the perpetrators to demand the further displacement of Copts.  This really is ethnic cleansing.  It needs to be brought before international human rights organizations.

Here is an update on the above efforts to ethnically cleanse Copts from this village:

CAIRO, Egypt (AsiaNews / Agencies) – The radical Muslims are trying to forcibly empty a village near Alexandria of its Coptic Christian population – 62 families, on the basis of unfounded allegations against a Copt. The Copts of Kobry-el-Sharbat (el-Amerya) were attacked on Jan. 27 by a crowd of some three thousand Muslims led by Salafi leaders who set fire to the Copts houses and shops.

The violence were sparked by the allegations of a barber Muslim Toemah, who claimed that a Coptic tailor of 34, Samy Mourad Guirgis, had “illegal” photos of a Muslim woman on his cell phone. Mourad has denied the charges, and turned himself in to police in fear of his life. The Muslims set fire to his house and his shop, and his whole family was forced to leave the village. Mourad is still under police custody.

Since then there have been three “reconciliation meetings” in the police headquarters in el-Amerya, attended by representatives of the Coptic Church, the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to police, the woman concerned has denied the whole story, and no compromising photos of any kind were found Mourad’s cell phone. But radical Muslims argue that “Muslim honor has been damaged,” and at the first meeting, they refused any type of compensation for the Copts who were innocent victims of their violence.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/02/62-coptic-christian-families-forcibly-evicted-by-salafi-muslims/

The article further details the "reconciliation meetings," during which a wealthy Coptic merchant was blackmailed into selling his assets "under the supervision of the Salafist Sheikh Sherif el-Hawary. Otherwise Kobry el-Sharbat would be attacked again, and the Coptic houses completely burned."  His house has been burned down, and an arrest warrant has been issued for his sons because of allegations that they fired guns into the air as their house was being burned down.

[Salpy]

Aren't the Copts in the diaspora in any way politically organized?  Aren't there international courts of human rights they can go to about this?

[mabsoota]

we campaign and protest and write letters, but we have to be sensitive as those in egypt can be harmed by too much activity (seen as collaborating with 'foreigners'.)
our biggest weapons are prayer and fasting.
also we remember our brothers in nigeria, other parts of east africa, asia etc. are going through the same things.
may the Lord make us all strong to stand up for our faith wherever we are and gain the crown of eternal life.

[minasoliman]

Every time a chance for the world to lend her hand and publicly chastise Egypt for the handling of minorities occur, the Copts in Egypt would be the first ones to stand and say "we'll handle our own problems without your help, thank you!"  So, we protest, but Egypt does not accept.  I don't know which to take sides on though.  Because of the world is involved, especially the US, one wonders if it makes the situation against the Copts even worse, now that they might be teeter-tottering on isolating the rest of the country as if they're non-citizens.

The best solution is to find a MLK-like individual who would stand up and revolutionize Egypt's thinking and support.  But of course, how can this work in a country that for sure by law might kill us for questioning the authority in a non-aggressive manner?  We can only pray.

[Gorazd]

In my humble opinion, the Copts will not be in peace, as long as Islam and Christiany are both present in Egypt. This conflict will end in one of two possible ways: Either Islam succeeds in making all Christians leave the country, or we succeed in returning the lost sheep of the Egyptian people to Christ. There just is no theological base for peaceful co-existence in Islam.

The recently glorified Saint Alexander of Munich said: "Evil must be attacked where it is the strongest". This certainly is the case here, with over 70% Islamists. But in this deep darkeness, there is a strong light shining, too. Remember that this is still the city of one of the Evangelists (St. Mark), of the New Testament canon (St. Athanasius), of Theosis (St. Cyril) etc. And more and more Muslims are coming to Christ.

Best wishes from Alexandria, Egypt.

[Salpy]

With regard to the Coptic merchant who is being forced to sell his assets under the supervision of a Salafist sheikh:

On Wednesday February 1, a hastily organized reconciliation meeting was arranged by security authorities, and was attended by Ebeskharion Soliman and one of his sons.

The terms of the agreement which resulted were:

eviction of eight Coptic families, namely three of the Mourad families, in addition to five Soliman families.
selling of the assets of the wealthy Abeskhayron Soliman family within three months by a committee, under the supervision of Salafi shaikh Sherif el Hawary. Soliman has no right to get involved in the sale or even accompany a prospective buyer.
the Committee is to collect any money accrued from the sale of his land, properties, businesses as well as collect promissory notes pending from business transactions by the Soliman-owned chain of stores.
in case of non-implementation of this Agreement, all Copts in the Kobry-el-Sharbat village will be attacked, their homes and property completely torched.
Abeskhayron Soliman signed the agreement, which most Copts viewed as "humiliating."

...

Wissa Fawzi, member of the Maspero Coptic Youth Union in Alexandria, said that Soliman has nothing at all to do with the Mourad story, but signed the agreement to save his family and the Copts in the village, "otherwise there would have been a massacre of the Copts on that Friday." He said that Security authorities pressured Soliman into accepting the terms of the agreement by threatening him with refusal of police protection for him and his family. "What constitutes the real crisis is the complicity of security officials in the process of displacement," said Fawzi.

http://www.aina.org/news/20120208194830.htm

So they are targeting Coptic capital, in addition to threatening to evict or kill entire populations of Copts.

This needs to be brought before international courts.

[Salpy]

Every time a chance for the world to lend her hand and publicly chastise Egypt for the handling of minorities occur, the Copts in Egypt would be the first ones to stand and say "we'll handle our own problems without your help, thank you!"  So, we protest, but Egypt does not accept.  I don't know which to take sides on though.  Because of the world is involved, especially the US, one wonders if it makes the situation against the Copts even worse, now that they might be teeter-tottering on isolating the rest of the country as if they're non-citizens.

The best solution is to find a MLK-like individual who would stand up and revolutionize Egypt's thinking and support.  But of course, how can this work in a country that for sure by law might kill us for questioning the authority in a non-aggressive manner?  We can only pray.

I can understand that the Copts are afraid of retaliation of they go to outside organizations for help;  However, it seems the people coming into power in Egypt are bent on eliminating the Copts regardless of what they do or don't do. 

[mabsoota]

as gorazd says; the light shines in the darkness. and the darkness does not overcome it.
God bless u brother, and may we all keep our own light shining.

[Balthasar]

Cairo’s Christians worry about Egypt’s next chapter
By David Ignatius, Published: November 8, Washington Post

This issue of sectarian tension

They always call it "Secterian"

A salafist policy-maker praying loud inside the new parlament of Egyptistan

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-parliament-member-loudly-chants-muslim-prayer-in-middle-of-legislative-session/

[minasoliman]

Every time a chance for the world to lend her hand and publicly chastise Egypt for the handling of minorities occur, the Copts in Egypt would be the first ones to stand and say "we'll handle our own problems without your help, thank you!"  So, we protest, but Egypt does not accept.  I don't know which to take sides on though.  Because of the world is involved, especially the US, one wonders if it makes the situation against the Copts even worse, now that they might be teeter-tottering on isolating the rest of the country as if they're non-citizens.

The best solution is to find a MLK-like individual who would stand up and revolutionize Egypt's thinking and support.  But of course, how can this work in a country that for sure by law might kill us for questioning the authority in a non-aggressive manner?  We can only pray.

I can understand that the Copts are afraid of retaliation of they go to outside organizations for help;  However, it seems the people coming into power in Egypt are bent on eliminating the Copts regardless of what they do or don't do. 

I'm just waiting for one activist to step up and to lead the minorities of Egypt into a non-aggressive manner of equal rights, despite the many killings that might occur.  It must be done in a wise manner, mixing with moderate and liberal Muslims to turn it into an Egyptian issue.  And it must be done with an emphasis on love for country, so that those who attack them attack Egypt.  No one should be able to make a case against you when you hold your flag up high side-by-side with Muslims preaching for Coptic and other minority rights.

So far, no protest ever showed that yet.

[CoptoGeek]

Aren't the Copts in the diaspora in any way politically organized? 

I know of two such groups in the US.

Coptic Solidarity
http://www.copticsolidarity.org/index.php?lang=en

US Copts Association
http://www.copts.com/english/

[CoptoGeek]

From the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Under Threat: The Worsening Plight of Egypt's Coptic Christians, Dec 2011

Raymond Ibrahim (http://www.raymondibrahim.com/):
Shariah, Dhimmitude & the Copts
Middle East specialist and Associate fellow, Middle East Forum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T-Y67SzLkk

Cynthia Farahat (http://cynthiafarahat.com/):
Jihad & the War on Egypt's Coptic Christians
Egyptian political activist & fellow at the Middle East Forum and the Center for Security Policy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHQbXPBEw-s

Adel Guindy:
Islamism & the Facade of Egyptian Democracy
President, Coptic Solidarity International
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQWeJusZRI

Opening remarks & the full panel, http://tlhrc.house.gov/media.asp?type=video&id=138


From Congress' Helsinki Commission on the disappearance of Coptic women, July 22, 2011

Caroline Doss, an attorney of Coptic Solidarity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6miPDnPPSkI

Dr. Michele Clark, Adjunct Professor George Washington's Elliott School of International Affairs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBGMp9rczKA

Dr. Clark's report for Christian Solidarity International
http://csi-int.org/pdfs/csi_coptic_report.pdf


From the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
Hearing on Christian Minorities Under Attack in Iraq and Egypt - Jan 2011

Dina Guirguis
Egyptian political activist, Washington Institute of Near East Policy
transcript of her testimony
http://tlhrc.house.gov/docs/transcripts/2011_01_20_Iraq_Egypt/Guirguis_Testimony.pdf

[CoptoGeek]

The Coptic Winter: What Does the Massacre at Maspero Mean for Egypt's Christians?
Hudson Institute, October 19, 2011

Samuel Tadros and Kurt Werthmuller, research fellows at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, and Eric Trager, Ira Weiner Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Center director Nina Shea will moderate the discussion

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17975639

[Salpy]

More violence against Copts in another village:

(AINA) — A mob of nearly 20,000 radical Muslims, mainly Salafis, attempted this evening to break into and torch the Church of St. Mary and St. Abram in the village of Meet Bashar,in Zagazig, Sharqia province. They were demanding the death of Reverend Guirgis Gameel, pastor of the church, who has been unable to leave his home since yesterday. Nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building. A home of a Copt living near the church and the home of the church’s porter were torched, as well as three cars.

The mob demanded the return Rania of Khalil Ibrahim, 15, to her father. She has been held with the Security Directorate since yesterday. Christian-born Rania had converted to Islam three months ago after her father, who had converted to Islam two years ago and took custody of her. She had disappeared from the village on Saturday, after claiming to go shopping. According to Reverend Guirgis Gameel, she had a disagreement with her father, who had arranged a marriage for her with a Muslim man.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/02/20000-muslims-attempt-to-kill-pastor-and-torch-church-in-egypt/

It needs to be mentioned that some of the Muslims in the village acted to protect their Coptic neighbors from the Salafis:

Some Coptic eyewitnesses said that a number of Muslim villagers tried to prevent the Salafis from assaulting their Christian neighbors and some stood as human shields to protect the church, until security forces arrived.

They need to be commended for their courage.

[Balthasar]

I am very sorry to say this, but I think something is telling me that Egyptian Christians should leave Egypt, at least, for some time, as tough time is coming to the country.

[CoptoGeek]

I am very sorry to say this, but I think something is telling me that Egyptian Christians should leave Egypt, at least, for some time, as tough time is coming to the country.

I agree with you.

[CoptoGeek]

The U.S. Helsinki Commission held a hearing entitled, "From Arab Spring to Coptic Winter: Sectarian Violence and the Struggle for Democratic Transition in Egypt"

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission), Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Mr. Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Department of State

Ms. Dina Guirguis, Egyptian democracy activist and attorney and member of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association (EARLA)

Mr. Samuel Tadros, Research Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom, Hudson Institute

Dr. Michele Dunne, Director, Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, Atlantic Council

Full Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNcohBcI-c

From Arab Spring to Coptic Winter: Sectarian Violence and the Struggle for Democratic Transition in Egypt
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Rep. Christopher H. Smith, Chairman, November 15, 2011
http://chrissmith.house.gov/UploadedFiles/2011-11-15_From_Arab_Spring_to_Coptic_Winter.pdf

From Arab Spring to Coptic Winter:  Sectarian Violence and the Struggle for Democratic Transition in Egypt Testimony before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
by Samuel Tadros , November 15, 2011
http://crf.hudson.org/files/publications/TadrosNov152011.pdf

[Balthasar]

A New Year of ‘Dhimmitude’ for Egypt’s Copts

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/02/20/a-new-year-of-dhimmitude-for-egypts-copts-2/

[Salpy]

WASHINGTON, -- Christian Solidarity International Board Member Michele Clark testified on Capitol Hill today about the continued abuse of Coptic females in Egypt, a nation struggling to come together in the aftermath of this Spring's Arab revolution.

The U.S. Helsinki Commission, more formally known as The U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, held today's hearing to examine the recent escalation of violence toward Coptic Christians in Egypt, as well as reports of disappearances, forced conversions and forced marriages of Coptic women and girls.

Clark, who also serves as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, told the Commission that there is no denying these reports

Read more here:

http://www.copts.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3558&Itemid=1

[CoptoGeek]

Egypt's faceless enemy
The suffering of Egypt's Christians is there for all to see — their churches have come under attack and people have died — but not the perpetrators
By Raghda El Halawany, Special to Weekend Review
February 24, 2012

The clashes started when thousands of Copts — joined by sympathetic Muslim activists — demonstrated in front of the "Maspero" building, the headquarters of the state TV, against the destruction of a church near Aswan, allegedly by a mob incited by a mosque preacher.

The protests turned violent leaving about 27, mostly Christian, demonstrators dead. Fourteen of them were crushed under military armoured vehicles, and more than 300 others were injured. No clear official investigation has been conducted. While Human Rights Watch claimed the military used excessive force against the demonstration, facts remain few amid the rumours and speculations.

"It was the most violent incident since the January 2011 revolution, but until now every time there is an incident, nothing happens, no one is charged or arrested. Offenders have to pay for what they have done to the churches and to the Christians," said Mina Girgis, a Coptic activist and one of the January 2011 revolutionists.

Father Filopater Gameel, a Coptic priest, a leading member of the Maspero Youth Union and an eyewitness to the Maspero massacre, had this to say. "I am not surprised that the Islamists won the parliament majority. There were many hints in recent months that they were going to easily win many seats. That they were insisting the elections take place while all the other political forces were pleading that the elections be postponed indicates that both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists made a deal with the military council."

Stronger statements were made by some Coptic intellectuals, including Milad Hanna, who warned that Copts, himself included, would embark on collective emigration from Egypt if the Muslim Brotherhood ascended to power.

Despite facing criticism, Hanna stuck to his words, which were published by Al Arabi newspaper: "I have sensed the state of anxiety after the results of the recent elections, as if Egypt was going to turn into a theocracy in a matter of weeks," he said, adding that the Copts fear that they could become "second-class citizens" under the Brotherhood.

Traditionally, the church and its head, Pope Shenouda, don't get involved in politics, focusing instead on the social aspects of the community. However, the present situation has pushed priests to encourage Copts to vote as a bloc to secure a minimum representation in the parliament.

To counter the Muslim Brotherhood, some clerics encouraged their parishioners to vote for the secular Egyptian Bloc, made up of both Muslim and Christian candidates. The Egyptian Bloc, newly founded by Christian business tycoon Sawiris, is a mix of mainly three parties: neo-liberal Free Egyptians, the socialist Gathering Party and the Egyptian Socialist Democrats. There are smaller Coptic parties, but for many Copts, a separation of religion and government is in their interests both as Egyptians and as Christians to defend themselves against the potential introduction of Islam into politics.

"We picked the Egyptian Bloc because it's the most liberal group and because they are against religious parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood," Father Ishak, a priest at St Mark's, said. "And if elections are free and fair, it will mean that Copts are more clearly represented and be more active in building a new Egypt."

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/egypt/egypt-s-faceless-enemy-1.984152

[Salpy]

Egyptian Christian Sentened to 6 Years in Prison for 'Insulting the Prophet'

(AINA) -- In the latest in a series of "defamation of religion" cases, an appeal has been filed on behalf of a Egyptian Christian who was sentenced to six years in prison for "insulting the Prophet." Legal observers saw many flaws in the ruling of the judge of the Abanoub misdemeanor court, in Assiut province, while others accused him of appeasing a mob of 2500 Muslims who congregated outside the court and demanded the death penalty for the defendant, Makram Diab. Eyewitnesses reported that some of the Muslims carried knives and wanted to break into the court and kill Diab, but were blocked by the police.

Diab's Muslim defense lawyer, Ahmad Sayed Gabali, said that during his 18 years as lawyer, he has never experienced what he went through in this case. "Over 80 Islamist lawyers representing civil rights claimants filled the court, locked the door of the court from the inside, not allowing the judge out, and prevented me as the defense lawyer from going inside the court and defending my client."

A discussion on February 9 between the Makram Diab, who is a school secretary, and a Salafi school teacher became heated but then simply ended. Thirteen days later, on February 23, another teacher named Abdel-Hamid, who was not present during the quarrel or even at school on that day, filed a complaint with the police, signed by another 11 teachers, accusing Makram Diab of insulting Islam's prophet. "This was a normal quarrel between him and the Muslim teacher," said Gabali, "which could happen anywhere. It was provoked by the teacher, who has been transferred several times from different schools after being reprimanded for causing sedition, and was used by the Salafis for their benefit. This is a group of teachers who used Diab as a scapegoat."

Read the rest here:

http://www.aina.org/news/20120304191519.htm

No one is even sure what the alleged defamation consisted of.

[Ionnis]

Metropolitan Gerasimos offered up prayers on behalf of the persecuted Christians in Egypt at the end of the Liturgy today. This is just awful!!!

[Salpy]

Egyptian Court Sentences Priest from Attacked Church Building

Assailants uncharged, but clergyman gets six months in jail for building violation.

CAIRO, Egypt, March 7 (CDN)

— A priest in Egypt was sentenced this week to six months in jail for a minor construction violation at his church building, while no one in a mob that burned the same structure down has been arrested.


The Rev. Makarious Bolous of the Mar Gerges Church in Aswan was sentenced on Sunday (March 4), but neither the imams who called for the attack nor the Muslim villagers who destroyed the church building last September have been charged with any crime.


Bolous said the ruling, coupled with the absence of prosecution against those who burned down the church building, is clear evidence of persecution and a legal double standard between Christians and Muslims.

Read more here:

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1436277.html

[Salpy]

300 Muslim Lawyers Storm Egyptian Court, Prevent Lawyers for Christian From Entering
by OCP on MARCH 16, 2012
in NEWS
By Mary Abdelmassih
Assyrian International News Agency
16/3/2012

(AINA) — More than 300 Muslim lawyers inside and outside a courthouse in the southern Egyptian province of Assuit today prevented defense lawyer Ahmad Sayed Gabali, who is representing the Christian Makarem Diab, from going into court. Mr. Diab was found guilty of ‘Insulting the Muslim Prophet’ and was scheduled today a hearing on his appeal.

Attorney Dr. Naguib Gabriell, head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization, said there was “terror in the Assiut Court today.” He added that he was on his way to court when he was advised that Muslim lawyers have issued death threats to any Christian lawyers who attend the court session. “Makram Diab was assaulted by Muslim lawyers during his transfer from the courtroom and security failed to protect him.”

Peter Sarwat, a Coptic lawyer, said that Muslim lawyers representing the plaintiffs prevented the defense team from entering court. “They said no Muslim will defend a Christian. It was agreed that Christian lawyers would take over and two Coptic lawyers volunteered, but the Muslims decided later that even Christians would not defend him.” Sarwat said the Muslim lawyers wanted to assault the chief judge but he managed to leave the court via a rear door.

Read more here:

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/03/300-muslim-lawyers-storm-egyptian-court-prevent-lawyers-for-christian-from-entering/

[Salpy]

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (Uscirf) has released its latest report, which identifies the 16 worst countries in terms of religious persecution.  Egypt, of course is one if them:

In many cases the persecution is at the hands of the government, as, for example, in China, Burma, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, but often, in places like Nigeria and Iraq, it is committed by religious extremists and vigilantes in the society who operate within a climate of impunity. In Pakistan and Egypt persecution is sponsored by all three — the authorities, extremist groups, and vigilantes.

Persecution is intensifying now in the Muslim world, as documented throughout the Uscirf report. Each year, the report’s cover reflects a signal event in the global landscape of religious persecution. This year’s bears a photo of Egyptian mourners gathered in central Cairo on October 13, 2011, in honor of some 25 Coptic Christians killed days before by the Egyptian military during a demonstration over an attack on a church. The commission decided it was important to single out the Copts. There are rising fears for them now that Egypt will be governed by Islamists, some of whom, notably from the sizeable Wahhabi or Salafist parliamentarian faction, have openly declared their intent of religious cleansing.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/03/the-worlds-worst-religious-persecutors-oped/

[Salpy]

Salafist Leaders Celebrate Death of Coptic Pope in Egypt

I don't want to paste the horrible things some Salafi leaders are saying about His Holiness now that he has reposed in the Lord.  If anyone has the stomach to read it, they can do so here:

http://www.worldwatchlist.us/news/salafist-leaders-celebrate-death-of-coptic-pope-in-egypt/

The article does fortunately mention that most Muslims do not share those sentiments.

The last three paragraphs of the article are remarkable in what they report about one of the Salafi leaders, Sheik Wagdy Ghoneim:

Shenouda was buried on Tuesday (March 20) in the Monastery of St. Bishoy in Wadi el-Natrun, with several thousand followers attending. Before Shenouda was buried, Naguib Ghobrial, lawyer and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, filed suit on Monday (March 19) against Ghoneim for contempt of a revealed religion.


Undeterred, Ghoneim released a statement the next day denying any wrongdoing and issued a challenge to all Christians.


“You believe in your Bible and say its words are holy,” he concluded. [Your Bible teaches] ‘Love your enemies and bless all who curse you.’ Your enemies – you love them and those who curse you – you bless them. So I say, God curse you! Bless me now. Bless me. Isn’t this your religion? I am going to say it again – I am your enemy, and I say, God curse you. Now, say it, ‘We love you Wagdy. And God bless you Wagdy.’”

[dzheremi]

Challenge accepted. I will pray for you out of love, Mr. Ghoneim, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the One God.

[Salpy]

I'll accept the challenge too, and pray for his salvation.

[kevlev]

God bless our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt; may their faithfulness and love of Christ in the face of persecution glorify God and bring all who witness their acts of faith to salvation!

[mabsoota]

thanks, kevlev and welcome to the forums!

[Salpy]

Welcome, kevlev!

[kevlev]

Thank you for the hospitality, mabsoota and Salpy! May the Lord bless and keep you both!

[CoptoGeek]

I don't know too much about this documentary and if it whitewashes things or deals with them honestly, but it looks interesting.

http://onehandthemovie.com/

And a belated welcome to the forum, kevlev.

[Salpy]

Salafist Leaders Celebrate Death of Coptic Pope in Egypt

I don't want to paste the horrible things some Salafi leaders are saying about His Holiness now that he has reposed in the Lord.  If anyone has the stomach to read it, they can do so here:

http://www.worldwatchlist.us/news/salafist-leaders-celebrate-death-of-coptic-pope-in-egypt/

The article does fortunately mention that most Muslims do not share those sentiments.

The last three paragraphs of the article are remarkable in what they report about one of the Salafi leaders, Sheik Wagdy Ghoneim:

Shenouda was buried on Tuesday (March 20) in the Monastery of St. Bishoy in Wadi el-Natrun, with several thousand followers attending. Before Shenouda was buried, Naguib Ghobrial, lawyer and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, filed suit on Monday (March 19) against Ghoneim for contempt of a revealed religion.


Undeterred, Ghoneim released a statement the next day denying any wrongdoing and issued a challenge to all Christians.


“You believe in your Bible and say its words are holy,” he concluded. [Your Bible teaches] ‘Love your enemies and bless all who curse you.’ Your enemies – you love them and those who curse you – you bless them. So I say, God curse you! Bless me now. Bless me. Isn’t this your religion? I am going to say it again – I am your enemy, and I say, God curse you. Now, say it, ‘We love you Wagdy. And God bless you Wagdy.’”

Regarding the words of Sheikh Wagdy Ghoneim in the final paragraph, a columnist from Touchstone Magazine had this to say:

During his illness, I and others in our church, along with Christians worldwide, prayed for Pope Shenouda asking God for his recovery. In a recent interview, Bishop Mouneer Anis, head of the Episcopal and Anglican Diocese of Egypt, North Africa and the Horn of Africa, said of Pope Shenouda, “He was a friend of many Muslim leaders. He was a peacemaker. He was even criticized by Christians for making peace with those who persecuted the church.” Shortly before his passing, Pope Shenouda’s last public meeting was with members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Pope Shenouda III left a powerful witness for the Lord Jesus Christ and a legacy of struggle for the freedom of persecuted Christians in Egypt. As our Lord taught, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” May the memory of this son of God, Pope Shenouda III, be eternal! As for Sheik Ghoneim, I am praying that he become a great Christian evangelist and apologist to the people of the Middle East. Perhaps even on his next trip to Damascus. Such things have happened before.

http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/2012/03/coptic-christians-mourn-islamist-leaders-rejoice/#more-6007

[Salpy]

CAIRO- An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

Gamal Abdou Massoud was also accused of distributing some of his cartoons to his school friends in a village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population and the hometown of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

...

The cartoons, published by Massoud in December, prompted some Muslims to attack Christians. Several Christian houses were burned and several Christians were injured in the violence.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/04/egyptian-christian-17-gets-three-years-in-jail-for-facebook-cartoons-that-insulted-islam/

[ialmisry]

CAIRO- An Egyptian court on Wednesday sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad, actions that sparked sectarian violence.

Gamal Abdou Massoud was also accused of distributing some of his cartoons to his school friends in a village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population and the hometown of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda.

...

The cartoons, published by Massoud in December, prompted some Muslims to attack Christians. Several Christian houses were burned and several Christians were injured in the violence.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/04/egyptian-christian-17-gets-three-years-in-jail-for-facebook-cartoons-that-insulted-islam/

Lord have mercy! God guide and save Ghoneim!

[Salpy]

EGYPTIAN PANEL DROPS MASPERO MASSACRE CASE FOR ‘LACK OF EVIDENCE’
by OCP on APRIL 28, 2012
in FEATURED NEWS,NEWS


On April 24 the panel of judges appointed by the Egyptian minister of justice to investigate the Maspero massacre of October 9, 2011, which claimed the lives of 27 Christians and injured 329, closed the case. In his explanation of the verdict, judge Sarwat Hammad said the case was closed for “lack of identification of the culprits” who killed the army conscript Mohammad Shata and nine protesters (all Christians) with ammunition, as well as attempting to break into a government building and assaulting military personnel.

Charges against 28 Christian Copts and prominent Muslim activist Alaa Abdel-Fatah, who were previously detained, were also dropped for lack of evidence, said the judge. According to their defense lawyers, most of the detainees were arrested after October 9, and some were not even at the Maspero protest and were collected from the streets for just being Christians. Three of them were teens under 16. The judge referred two Copts, Michael Adel Naguib and Michael Shaker, to the criminal court for allegedly stealing a heavy-duty machine gun from one of the military armored vehicle and “using it to kill Copts” during the Maspero protest. According to Naguib’s father, the army and police raided their home in the early hours two days after the massacre and found nothing at home. He said they beat his son and took him away in his underwear.

...

The second part of the case is the trial by a military court of three conscripts, who were driving the military armored vehicles which crushed 14 Copts under their wheels. They are charged with involuntary manslaughter, a misdemeanor which under the Penal Code carries penalties of imprisonment of not more than seven years. Eyewitnesses and video clips showed the armored vehicles chasing protesters over the pavements.

...

By Mary Abdelmassih© 2012, AINA

Read the whole article here:

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/04/egyptian-panel-drops-maspero-massacre-case-for-lack-of-evidence/

[mabsoota]

Lord have mercy and give our brothers and sisters strength.
 

[Salpy]

Egypt's Lost Daughters; the Abduction of Christian Girls

...

Mary's parents stayed up throughout the night waiting anxiously for their daughter's return. Mary's father filed a report at the police station the next morning. He stayed at the station the entire day, determined to see that an investigation was being carried out. Late that afternoon, the police told him they had found his daughter.

Mary was escorted along with several other women into the station by four men in Islamic dress with long beards. The men were Salafis, a group that follows the strict doctrine of Wahhabi Islam from Saudi Arabia. Mary was covered head to toe in a burka. "[My husband] recognized her by her shoes," Magda told ICC.

Two armed policemen stood by, watching the father's every move. When he called Mary by name, a Muslim man hit her in the face. There was no answer.
...

Read the whole article here:

http://www.aina.org/news/201205912943.htm

It makes one sick.

The Copts in diaspora need to organize themselves better, to deal with what is going on in their homeland.  I think it would be possible to get other Christian organizations around the world on board.  A boycott of Egypt's tourist industry would be very appropriate, and not impossible.

The Armenians in diaspora organized after the Genocide, and the Republic of Turkey has not had any rest.  They still refuse to recognize the Genocide, and they are still very repressive toward what is left of their Christian and other minorities, but at least they don't have an easy time of it:

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/100343/

Erdogan says Turks “are tired” of Armenian Genocide

March 26, 2012 - 13:26 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - The issue of the Armenian Genocide was discussed at the meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the nuclear summit in Seoul.

In particular, Erdogan complained to Obama about Turkey being tired of the Genocide problem.

http://www.aina.org/news/2012059012921.htm

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) has been on a rampage in recent years, filing lawsuits against scholars, public officials, and civic groups who support the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Last week, a federal appeals court put an end to TCA's legal tirade against the University of Minnesota by unanimously upholding a federal court's decision dismissing TCA's baseless allegations.

The Turkish advocacy group had filed a lawsuit against Prof. Bruno Chaouat, Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, for labeling TCA's website and others as “unreliable.” The university's webpage had posted the following stern admonition to students: “We do not recommend these sites. Warnings should be given to students writing papers that they should not use these sites because of denial, support by an unknown organization, or contents that are a strange mix of fact and opinion.”

[jnorm888]

Thanks for the link Salpy!

My Egyptian contact is upset with me at the moment and so I haven't been in touch with what's been going on for about a couple months now.

[Salpy]

Egyptian Judge Frees Attackers Who Knifed Christian

Hard-line Salafi Muslims cut off Copt’s ear, terrorize his family.
ISTANBUL, May 9 (CDN) — A judge in Upper Egypt has dismissed all charges against a group of Salafi Muslims who cut off the ear of a Christian in a knife attack and tried to force him to convert.


The Salafists, who say they base their religion on the practices of the first three generations of Muslims after Muhammad, had falsely accused 46-year-old Ayman Anwar Metry of having an affair with a Muslim woman, the Christian told Compass. On April 22 the judge exonerated the assailants only after Metry, under intense pressure in a “reconciliation meeting,” agreed to drop charges, said his attorney, Asphoure Wahieb Hekouky.


“Him dropping the case and accepting the reconciliation meeting is shameful,” Hekouky said of the Egyptian justice system.


The same Salafi Muslims who attacked Metry terrorized him and his family for a year, Hekouky said.

Read what happened here:

http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1532636.html

[mabsoota]

may God have mercy and give them all perfect peace.
my friends came back from egypt recently.
things are very expensive and everyone is struggling.
there is massive youth unemployment and general lawlessness against both Christians and muslims.
in all this our brothers and sister are struggling the most.

may God bring us peace and wisdom and grant us a kind and wise leader who can show us have to live for Jesus in these difficult times.

[Balthasar]

12 Copts sentenced to life in prison, 8 Muslims acquitted

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/12-copts-sentenced-life-imprisonment-8-muslims-acquitted-over-abu-qurqas-violence-news-1


Who’s Really Persecuting Christians?

Last month CBS’s “60 Minutes” show earned itself some justified criticism for a biased report about the treatment of Palestinian Christians by Israel. As Alana noted then, the premise of the piece — that routine security precautions on the part of Israeli forces has led to a decline in the Christian population in the West Bank — was preposterous. Why would Israeli measures cause Christian numbers to diminish but not affect the rapidly growing Muslim population? Only a determination to blame Israel for everything could have led the “60 Minutes” team to avoid the obvious explanation: the rise of militant Islam in traditional Christian strongholds that has gradually forced many Christians to flee the country. Israel remains the only country in the Middle East where the rights of the Christian minority — which is growing — are respected.

But the pushback against this calumny requires more background than just a fact check about the West Bank. The Gatestone Institute has published an important online monthly report about Muslim persecution of Christians throughout Asia and Africa and it makes for frightening reading. Even a brief summary of the litany of horrors being visited upon Christians by Muslims puts the ridiculous accusations against Israel in perspective.

* Attacks on churches took place in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia.

* Christians were threatened with death and imprisonment for “blasphemy” and apostasy in Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan. At the same time, Muslim terrorists have threatened Christian pastors in the Philippines.

* In a separate category called “dhimmitude,” the report discusses the “general abuse, debasement, and suppression of non-Muslims as tolerated citizens.” Such incidents were recorded in Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

The widespread scope of incidents of persecution throughout the Muslim world ought to alarm Christians in the West. But for some reason, it doesn’t. The Palestinians, whose goal is to eradicate the one Jewish state in the world, seem to generate more sympathy in Europe and America than the embattled Christians of the Third World.
All this took place in April of this year alone.

Those who purport to care about human rights undermine their already shaky credibility when they ignore the far greater instances of abuse of Christians by Arabs and Muslims while supporting the delegitimization of the one democracy in the Middle East as well as the one nation in the region that protects Christians.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/05/18/who-is-really-persecuting-christians-muslim/

[ialmisry]

12 Copts sentenced to life in prison, 8 Muslims acquitted

http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/12-copts-sentenced-life-imprisonment-8-muslims-acquitted-over-abu-qurqas-violence-news-1


Who’s Really Persecuting Christians?

Last month CBS’s “60 Minutes” show earned itself some justified criticism for a biased report about the treatment of Palestinian Christians by Israel. As Alana noted then, the premise of the piece — that routine security precautions on the part of Israeli forces has led to a decline in the Christian population in the West Bank — was preposterous. Why would Israeli measures cause Christian numbers to diminish but not affect the rapidly growing Muslim population? Only a determination to blame Israel for everything could have led the “60 Minutes” team to avoid the obvious explanation: the rise of militant Islam in traditional Christian strongholds that has gradually forced many Christians to flee the country. Israel remains the only country in the Middle East where the rights of the Christian minority — which is growing — are respected.

BS.

To reach those conclusions the writer jumped over a few obvious facts-like Muslims also are emigrating, and that any emigration hits a minority (which the Christians are) harder.

As for the rise of militant Islam, the Zionists were the ones who funded Hamas in the first place (in an effort to divide and conquer the PLO.  Be careful what you wish for).

But the pushback against this calumny requires more background than just a fact check about the West Bank. The Gatestone Institute has published an important online monthly report about Muslim persecution of Christians throughout Asia and Africa and it makes for frightening reading. Even a brief summary of the litany of horrors being visited upon Christians by Muslims puts the ridiculous accusations against Israel in perspective.

there is no other Jewish nor Zionist state to compare.

* Attacks on churches took place in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia.

* Christians were threatened with death and imprisonment for “blasphemy” and apostasy in Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan. At the same time, Muslim terrorists have threatened Christian pastors in the Philippines.

* In a separate category called “dhimmitude,” the report discusses the “general abuse, debasement, and suppression of non-Muslims as tolerated citizens.” Such incidents were recorded in Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

The widespread scope of incidents of persecution throughout the Muslim world ought to alarm Christians in the West. But for some reason, it doesn’t. The Palestinians, whose goal is to eradicate the one Jewish state in the world, seem to generate more sympathy in Europe and America than the embattled Christians of the Third World.

uh, those Christians in Palestine are.....Palestinians.

All this took place in April of this year alone.

Those who purport to care about human rights undermine their already shaky credibility when they ignore the far greater instances of abuse of Christians by Arabs

and the Arab Christians?

and Muslims while supporting the delegitimization of the one democracy in the Middle East as well as the one nation in the region that protects Christians.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/05/18/who-is-really-persecuting-christians-muslim/

someone has his Zionist goggles on.

[Balthasar]

@ialmisry

I thought you were going to say something on the 12 Egyptian Copts!

You don't seem to like Jews and Israel. You know what, the creation of the state of Israel is the best thing that happened in that part of the world for the past 1400 years. We Ethiopians love Jews and Israel!

[ialmisry]

@ialmisry

I thought you were going to say something on the 12 Egyptian Copts!

not many facts presented to comment on.

You don't seem to like Jews and Israel. You know what, the creation of the state of Israel is the best thing that happened in that part of the world for the past 1400 years. We Ethiopians love Jews and Israel!

The Zionists' neighbors know them better.

I didn't say a thing against Jews.  Your Zionist goggles ar making you confuse Judaism with Zionism.

If the Ethiopians loved the Jews so much, why did the Falashas leave?

[Salpy]

Below is more on the story on the 12 Copts who were convicted, which is related to the subject matter of this thread.  A discussion on the treatment of Christians in Israel would belong in another section.

On 21 May, Egypt's State Security Council sentenced 12 Christians to life in prison and acquitted eight Muslims.  The Christians were found guilty of sowing public strife, possession of illegal weapons, and killing two Muslims in an April 2011 episode of violence that took place in Minya province, about 220 kilometers south of Cairo. 

The violence was spurred on after a Muslim bus driver became angry over a speed bump in front of a wealthy Christian's home. The bus driver got into an argument with security guards who then beat him up.

After returning back to his village, Abu Qurqas, a group of Muslims gathered near an ultraconservative Islamist group's office to protest the beating. Christians nearby began to shoot at the crowd, killing two and injuring two, when they thought they were going to be attacked.  Following the attack, Muslim villagers burnt down several Christian homes and businesses.  The eight Muslims that were acquitted were charged with possession of illegal weapons and burning down Christian-owned homes and businesses.

Read the rest here:

http://www.aina.org/news/20120522122034.htm

[Salpy]

Another article on the incident:

Many rights groups criticized the verdict as being "unbelievable" and "extremely harsh" towards the Copts. All the Muslims defendants, "who torched at least 56 Coptic homes, as well as businesses and barns, were acquitted," said Wagdi Halfa, defense attorney of the Coptic victims, in an interview aired yesterday by Coptic TV Channel. He expressed his incomprehension at how Coptic lawyer Alaa Reda Roushdi, who was not even in Abou Qorqas during the events, and then kept under house arrest by the police for another three days, could get life imprisonment.

Adel Roushdi, younger brother of Alaa Roushdi said during the same TV interview that the Islamists wanted to get rid of his brother because of the parliamentary elections, where his brother was sure to win. He accused the police chief in Abou Qorqas of planning the whole episode.

http://www.aina.org/news/20120524134813.htm

[CoptoGeek]

Christians in Egypt: A storm within the storm
The country's 'orphaned' Coptic minority is still hurting seven months after 27 died at the hands of the military.
Lauren E. Bohn and Omnia Al Desoukie, May 23, 2012 10:40

But, as it turned out, Maspero was not so much a turning point for Copts as it was an open wound, and one that Mossad says is still healing. Copts have suffered discrimination throughout hundreds of years of history in Egypt. Individual Copts have also been great Egyptian nationalists and leading thinkers, industrialists and artists who are frequently quick to point out that Muslims and Christians are like brothers in Egypt. It’s a complex relationship – as fraught as any sibling rivalry. But what is clear as Egypt takes its first faltering steps toward electing a civilian president, is that a democracy and the constitution upon which it is based are defined in how the rights of minorities are protected. Today Copts are left wondering and worrying about their place in a new Egypt.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/120523/christians-egypt-presidential-election

[Balthasar]

Egyptian Cleric: Sharia Law Would Make Egypt the ‘Mightiest Nation in the World’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-cleric-sharia-law-would-make-egypt-the-mightiest-nation-in-the-world/

Please, our Coptic brothers and sisters, leave Egypt now! Ethiopia owners of the Nile water know how to handle these messengers of Satan.

[ialmisry]

Egyptian Cleric: Sharia Law Would Make Egypt the ‘Mightiest Nation in the World’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-cleric-sharia-law-would-make-egypt-the-mightiest-nation-in-the-world/

Please, our Coptic brothers and sisters, leave Egypt now! Ethiopia owners of the Nile water know how to handle these messengers of Satan.

God bless those who stay!

I'm wondering how soon the new president elect will be able to show what regime has taken power.  Lord have mercy!

[CoptoGeek]

All we can do now is pray.


Statement by His Grace Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom on the announcement of Mr Mohammed Morsi as the new president of Egypt on the 23rd June 2012.

http://www.copticcentre.blogspot.com/2012/06/statement-by-his-grace-bishop-angaelos.html

[Salpy]

We definitely need to pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt.

[Hiwot]

Egyptian Cleric: Sharia Law Would Make Egypt the ‘Mightiest Nation in the World’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-cleric-sharia-law-would-make-egypt-the-mightiest-nation-in-the-world/

Please, our Coptic brothers and sisters, leave Egypt now! Ethiopia owners of the Nile water know how to handle these messengers of Satan.

Balthazar, you need to think about what you are saying my brother, you being a copt should know better than to suggest such a thing. Trust me when I say, that I will go and join my brothers and sisters in Egypt and die by the gates of Saint Mark before i suggest for all of them to abandon Egypt. Please Forget  about the Nile, and most Ethiopians that I have known are anti Zionism and sympathise with the plight of Palestinians both Christians and Muslims, and we very much love our Arab Christian brothers and sisters, we have Arab Christian Saints that have been baptised and served in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, St. Abba Embaqom is one of them. I am sincerely troubled by your tone and insinuations, once again I will ask you I know you are in pain, but pain and suffering are the time where we must be more loyal to the principles that make us who and what we are, if we betray the tenants of our faith for the cup of madness offered to us, then whats the point of it all?

I am now in deep sadness at the result of the election, even though I have anticipated it, still it was difficult and painful all the same.The Copts and all the Christians in Egypt are now faced with a real danger, May the Almighty God, be with them and shelter them, this is not the first time they have carried the Cross He has blessed them with, and this will not be by the Grace of God the last, so with tears I join in the prayer of the church that if it be His will that they carry this cross,for the copts to continue to be granted the Grace of remaining a loyal servant and witness of Christ the Almighty.

Let us remember what our beloved Holy Father had said with compassionate wisdom, with tears, with much courage and strength of Faith.

 taken from HH Pope Shenouda's sermon in 2008  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESG-KO4QX88&feature=related

[Balthasar]

Egyptian Cleric: Sharia Law Would Make Egypt the ‘Mightiest Nation in the World’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-cleric-sharia-law-would-make-egypt-the-mightiest-nation-in-the-world/

Please, our Coptic brothers and sisters, leave Egypt now! Ethiopia owners of the Nile water know how to handle these messengers of Satan.

Balthazar, you need to think about what you are saying my brother, you being a copt should know better than to suggest such a thing. Trust me when I say, that I will go and join my brothers and sisters in Egypt and die by the gates of Saint Mark before i suggest for all of them to abandon Egypt. Please Forget  about the Nile, and most Ethiopians that I have known are anti Zionism and sympathise with the plight of Palestinians both Christians and Muslims, and we very much love our Arab Christian brothers and sisters, we have Arab Christian Saints that have been baptised and served in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, St. Abba Embaqom is one of them. I am sincerely troubled by your tone and insinuations, once again I will ask you I know you are in pain, but pain and suffering are the time where we must be more loyal to the principles that make us who and what we are, if we betray the tenants of our faith for the cup of madness offered to us, then whats the point of it all?

I am now in deep sadness at the result of the election, even though I have anticipated it, still it was difficult and painful all the same.The Copts and all the Christians in Egypt are now faced with a real danger, May the Almighty God, be with them and shelter them, this is not the first time they have carried the Cross He has blessed them with, and this will not be by the Grace of God the last, so with tears I join in the prayer of the church that if it be His will that they carry this cross,for the copts to continue to be granted the Grace of remaining a loyal servant and witness of Christ the Almighty.

Let us remember what our beloved Holy Father had said with compassionate wisdom, with tears, with much courage and strength of Faith.

 taken from HH Pope Shenouda's sermon in 2008  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESG-KO4QX88&feature=related

Thank you, dear Hiwot for your considerate thoughts. I will certainly watch the video, I know, His Holiness is watching over his people from above, I am certain!

But, I don't know whether Abraham's bargain with God will work in the Egyptian case – I wish. (Genesis 18:16-33) But, Egypt, the past 1400 years, mostly meant trouble to the wider world. How long do you think God will go on      tolerating the evil deeds of  the Pharaoh-blooded, Ishmael-spirited Egyptians?

God is using the demonic forces of Islam as a sign for the righteous ones in Egypt to abandon that place. Sooner or later, God's wrath will fall upon Egypt, another ten plagues are on their way, and the Nile will again play an important role. That's my humble feeling.

Be angry and  not sin; do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger.
Do not give the devil an opportunity (Ephesians 4:26-27)

So, let's all be righteously angry to demonstrate to those foolish evils that they are indeed fools and evils.

[CoptoGeek]

Egypt: Muslims force Christians out of church during prayer, police advise priest to comply
by Raymond Ibrahim, Jun 26, 2012 at 1:35 pm

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/2012/06/egypt-muslims-force-christians-out-of-church

[Balthasar]

Muslims murder two Christians in Egypt

http://www.bosnewslife.com/22304-egypt-christians-killed-after-election-morsi

“Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood "announced they would destroy the country if Morsi didn't win, but they also said they will take revenge from all those who voted for [his opponent Ahmed] Shafiq, especially the Christians as they are sure we did vote for Shafiq,"

"Soon after Morsi won, Christians in upper Egypt were forcibly prevented from going to churches."

[CoptoGeek]

The Coptic Solidarity Conference Attracts Large Number of Politicians and Rights Activists
Published on Monday, 02 July 2012 17:53

The Third Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference which wound up its sessions on Friday June 29, was attended by an unprecedented number of prominent political figures.

Amongst the most prominent figures attending the conference was Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael H. Posner. There was also a number of Congressmen such as Senator Roy Blunt and Congressman Frank Wolf. Also in attendance was Lord Alton from the British House of Lords and Jim Karygiannis, a senior member of the Canadian Parliament.

http://www.copticsolidarity.org/reports-resources/reports/675-the-coptic-solidarity-conference-attracts-large-number-of-politicians-and-rights-activists

[Salpy]

WASHINGTON -- A new Christian Solidarity International (CSI) report released today calls on Egypt's Islamist government and the international community - especially the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - to investigate and take strong measures to prevent the disappearance, forced marriage and forced conversion to Islam of Coptic Christian women and girls.

...

"Tell My Mother I Miss Her" was released in connection with today's Congressional Helsinki Commission hearing on violence against Coptic women in Egypt, chaired by Congressman Chris Smith. Speaking as a witness before the hearing, Professor Clark stated, "Coptic women in Egypt are disappearing from their homes, their schools and their jobs. These cases are not allegations."

The hearing also featured testimony from an Egyptian Christian woman who received asylum in the United States after narrowly escaping abduction in Alexandria in January 2011. She was rescued by a doorman who saw her and her infant daughter being dragged into a taxi by a man shouting that she was "an enemy of Islam."

...

www.marketwatch.com

http://www.aina.org/news/20120718183057.htm

[Salpy]

A Christian laundry worker burns the shirt of a Muslim, and Christian homes are burned:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_EGYPT_SECTARIAN_CLASHES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-07-27-14-53-51

[Salpy]

According to this article, things have become worse for Copts since Morsy's election.  Ethnic cleansing of Copts is becoming more common:

http://www.aina.org/news/20120731192433.htm

120 Christian Families Flee Egyptian Village Following Death of a Muslim

AINA) -- The sectarian strife between Muslims and Christians which took place last week in the village of Dahshur has prompted over 120 Christian families to flee their homes today after news that a Muslim man who had suffered 3rd degree burns in the incident died this morning in a Cairo hospital. Before his death, the father and brother of Moaz Hassab-Allah told the media yesterday that should he die, "the whole village will avenge his death."

Coptic villagers were terrorized today after a Muslim Brotherhood cleric roamed the village vowing that the village church of St. George will be burned down, its pastor and all the entire Christian inhabitants killed and their homes torched after the burial of Moaz tonight, reportd Coptic activist Maariam Ragy.

Two other incidents:

In another incident in Shubra el Khayma, Qaliubya province, On July 26, Dr Maher Ghaly looked out from his window at dawn and asked a group of Muslim Salafis who have a shop in the same building not to fire their weapons in the air in celebration of another day of the Ramadan fast. He explained to them that in his household there are sick persons and children who are greatly disturbed. "Their answer was to shoot at him. One of his eyes was blown away and there is no hope of replacing the cornea in his other eye," said his brother Fayez. He said that the Muslims wanted to break the main building door and go to his flat but were unable. "Although the police issued a report, they have done nothing to arrest the culprits."

...

Two days ago, a Muslim attacked a church in the area of Sheikh Zayed, Qaliubya. Prosection did not make any charged against him as he is "mentally unstable," and was subsequently released.

[CoptoGeek]

Just so its clear, the real cause was not some BS story about a burnt shirt. This is a deliberate, on-going effort to destroy every Christian owned business village by village, a slow motion Kristallnacht.

[Salpy]

Another Copt has been arrested for insulting Islam, and also for insulting the new president.

http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/31/229494.html

It all stems from a cartoon on a Facebook page, which the person accused says he did not put there.

[Severian]

Has the US Government done anything to prevent these acts?

[Salpy]

No.  The Copts here in the US really need to organize. 

[Salpy]

Regarding the burnt shirt incident, the Coptic neighborhood was burned down, as the Muslim Brotherhood cleric promised:

(AINA) -- The sectarian crisis in the village of Dahshur escalated on August 1 after the burial of the Muslim man who died yesterday in hospital. Hundreds of Muslims torched and looted Coptic businesses and homes despite hundreds of security forces being deployed in the village. Eyewitnesses reported that security forces did not protect most Coptic property -- only the small church of St. George was protected, in addition to some Coptic houses in its neighborhood.

"As 120 families had already fled the village the day before after being terrorized, the businesses and homes were an easy game for the mob to make a complete clean-up of everything that could be looted," said Coptic activist Wagih Jacob. "The security forces were at the scene of the crime while it was taking place and did nothing at all."

After the violence, the family of the deceased Moaz Hasab-Allah said that destroying Coptic property is not enough and that Coptic have to "pay for their son's death" with lives. They did not yet accept condolences for his death, which is a sign that a vendetta is intended. In certain parts of Egypt, when the family of a deceased intends to take revenge, they accept no condolences before the persons responsible are killed.

The sectarian incident which, now called the "shirt sedition," started on July 27 in Dahshur, Badrasheen, 40 km south of Cairo, after the Coptic launderer Sameh Samy inadvertently burned the shirt of his Muslim client Ahmad Ramadan. Although they agreed to meet in the evening to settle the claim, Ramadam did not wait but came back in the afternoon to fight. After some 3000 armed Muslims surrounded the Copt's home and launderette, he locked himself up in his home. As the fight intensified on both sides with Molotov cocktails, the Copt hurled one fire bomb from the roof of his house, which the 25-year-old Moaz, who happened to be passing by. He was taken to hospital, suffering third degree burns. After his death in hospital, Muslim brotherhood clerics and his family vowed to exact revenge, causing 120 terrorized Christian families to flee the village, with only one Christian family remaining behind according to the village priest Takla Abdel-Sayed.

Read the rest of the article here, including allegations that President Morsi is not living up to his promise to protect the Copts:

http://www.aina.org/news/20120802201306.htm

[CoptoGeek]

So much for citizenship rights 
by Sameh Samy, Friday 03 Aug 2012 - 02:26 PM
 
excerpt:

In Dahshur, the matter was compounded by the security order that the Copts must, for their own safety leave. Can this be a case of security deficiency, or uncontainable fanaticism? Will the culprits who killed, looted, and burned be caught? Will it be possible for the Copts to go back to their homes and businesses? And if so, who will help them rebuild these homes or restart their businesses from scratch? Or will it be impossible for them to go back, and it should be good-by forever to ‘previous’ prosperous lives? Will they be obliged to relocate, with the all the pain, hardship and alienation such a move involves? Nothing short of a comprehensive solution can put an end to the Dahshur crisis and ensure that no similar event occurs again.

http://www.wataninet.com/watani_Article_Details.aspx?A=29630

[CoptoGeek]

Fact-finding on Maspero  
Nader Shukry, Tuesday 07 Aug 2012 - 12:31 PM

excerpt:

The Maspero incident, in which 23 Copts and one Muslim met brutal deaths, took place on 9 October 2011 during a peaceful protest by Copts against the burning of a church in Merinab, Aswan. The protesters were shot be the security forces, and crushed under military trucks. Apart from the 24 who lost their lives, more than 300 suffered injuries.

At its offices in Heliopolis, the committee heard witnesses from among the injured and the victims’ families.

The committee's chairman, Judge Ayman Afifi, called upon the eyewitnesses who had not appeared before the commission to come forward with their testimonies, and to furnish the commission with any photos or video shots they might have of the event. The final report is expected by the end of the month.

http://www.wataninet.com/watani_Article_Details.aspx?A=29788

[CoptoGeek]

In Dahshur: Ruin beyond repair  
Robier al-Faris , Friday 10 Aug 2012 - 07:09 PM
 
The Giza town of Dahshur was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1979, since it is home to five of the most famous pyramids of ancient Egypt. Today, and thanks to the recent vicious attack against the town Copts, Dahshur is a place of total ruin.

http://www.wataninet.com/watani_Article_Details.aspx?A=29913

For a picture album of the visit, see
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.401803619874313.102337.131810520206959&type=1

[CoptoGeek]

Has the US Government done anything to prevent these acts?

Sad to say, but the US Gov't has actively supported the Ikhwan's rise to power. It's absolute insanity.

[CoptoGeek]

Copts in Upper Egypt Attacked, Beat, Plundered
By Coptic Solidarity, Published on Monday, 20 August 2012 14:32

Christian Copts in Upper Egypt are under attack, hours after a call for their eradication appeared in the form of leaflets calling on Muslims to kill Copts, specifically naming regions of Upper Egypt.

A report by Fady Talaat, for Al Akhbar News, published August 14, has the details. In Al Gallaweya Village, Sohag, Upper Egypt, Christians are being beaten, their stores destroyed, and their properties plundered. The attackers are declaring that “any Christian who dares to leave his house will be killed”; and the Copts are complaining that the police only arrive after the damage has been completely done.

http://www.copticsolidarity.org/cs-releases/784-copts-in-upper-egypt-attacked-beat-plundered

[Cyrillic]

What makes it even worse is that this is happening in the country of Athanasius, Anthony, Cyril, John the Almsgiver and so many other great luminaries 

I have the greatest respect for the Copts.

[Salpy]

This one is just stupid:

CHRISTIAN SURGEON’S HEART OP CENTRE UNDER THREAT FROM MUSLIMS IN EGYPT


A charitable medical centre that performs free heart operations on children in Egypt is under threat from radical Muslims, who want it closed down because it was founded by a Christian surgeon.

The centre in Aswan city was established by the world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub, an Egyptian Christian who emigrated to Britain in 1962. His charitable organisation covers all the centre’s costs, and operations are performed on Christian and Muslim children alike free of charge.

The centre’s Muslim director was interviewed on Egyptian television about the protests by radical elements in Aswan. She said that closing down the centre, which is licensed and has a government permit to practise, would be a big loss for Egypt.

http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christian-surgeons-heart-op-centre-under-threat-from-Muslims-in-Egypt.html

[dzheremi]

What a bunch of morons. They hate Christians more than they love free heart surgeries for children. It boggles the mind. If you're a skilled surgeon, and you volunteer to save my life FOR FREE, I don't care who you pray to once you put the scalpel down.

This kind of thing really makes me wonder how radical Islam has any appeal at all. "Join us! We'll close down hospitals that do charitable work FOR OUR OWN PEOPLE, all because the person who founded them, who doesn't even live in this country anymore but still directs hundreds of thousands of dollars to keeping our children healthy, is not a member of our religion!"

Thank God so many Copts go into medicine and pharmacy. Perhaps then if all of the radical Muslims boycott those services, they'll realize very quickly how much they need Christians in their societies to provide basic services that, surprise surprise, protesting and burning things down does not provide.

They will rue the day they closed the hospital when one of their children needs a heart operation. Ever wonder why Yasser Arafat, pride of Islamic resistance losers the world over, died in France, not Palestine? You'd think they'd want medical expertise available in-country, but nooooo, not if the people providing it don't bow to the name of Muhammad and his sick recension of God. God willing, they will learn their lesson without too many innocents having to die in the process, but that's not how things have been going these last, let's say, 1400 years...

[WeldeMikael]

What a bunch of morons. They hate Christians more than they love free heart surgeries for children.

Bigotry...   

Lord have mercy !

[CoptoGeek]

Persecution of Christian Copts in Egypt on Rise as Muslim Brotherhood Consolidates Power
By Michael Terheyden, 8/27/2012

KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - There is growing fear among the Coptic Christian community as open violence escalates against them in Egypt. According to reports, this violence is in response to a letter calling on Muslims to kill Copts. Again, the world watches to see if Egypt's new president, Mohammed Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, intends to follow up on his promise to be the president of all Egyptians.

On August 14, 2012, a publication called El Fegr posted a copy of a letter inciting violence against Christians. The title of the letter is "An Urgent and Important Notice." The letter refers to Christians as enemies of Allah's religion and slaves of the cross. It calls for Allah to curse them and for all Muslims to physically attack or kill Christians throughout Egypt until they either convert to Islam or submit to their status as dhimmi in accordance with verse 9:29 of the Koran.

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=47348

[Shanghaiski]

Has the US Government done anything to prevent these acts?

And it won't. The US follows Britain and France in actually supporting Islamism, although it supports Zionism first. It won't interfer to protect Christians.

[Shanghaiski]

This one is just stupid:

CHRISTIAN SURGEON’S HEART OP CENTRE UNDER THREAT FROM MUSLIMS IN EGYPT


A charitable medical centre that performs free heart operations on children in Egypt is under threat from radical Muslims, who want it closed down because it was founded by a Christian surgeon.

The centre in Aswan city was established by the world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, Sir Magdi Habib Yacoub, an Egyptian Christian who emigrated to Britain in 1962. His charitable organisation covers all the centre’s costs, and operations are performed on Christian and Muslim children alike free of charge.

The centre’s Muslim director was interviewed on Egyptian television about the protests by radical elements in Aswan. She said that closing down the centre, which is licensed and has a government permit to practise, would be a big loss for Egypt.

http://barnabasfund.org/US/News/Archives/Christian-surgeons-heart-op-centre-under-threat-from-Muslims-in-Egypt.html

Their false prophet Mohammed is also tainted, being taught by and having associated with Christians.

[Salpy]

RAFAH, Egypt, Sept. 21 (UPI) — Coptic Christians in two towns in Egyptian-controlled North Sinai say they refuse to leave despite threats against them and their church’s urging to go.

Leaflets were posted on the homes and businesses of seven families in Rafah and Arish, threatening to blow up the properties if they didn’t leave, the Cairo newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reported Friday.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/09/copts-refuse-to-leave-despite-threats/

[TITL]

RAFAH, Egypt, Sept. 21 (UPI) — Coptic Christians in two towns in Egyptian-controlled North Sinai say they refuse to leave despite threats against them and their church’s urging to go.

Leaflets were posted on the homes and businesses of seven families in Rafah and Arish, threatening to blow up the properties if they didn’t leave, the Cairo newspaper al-Masry al-Youm reported Friday.

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2012/09/copts-refuse-to-leave-despite-threats/

Why is it that news like this can spread like wildfire all over the world, but still can't be prevented? Usually destruction happens because "it was too late", or "no one knew it was coming", but here we are in America reading about someone's house about to be blown up, and we can't stop it???

[CoptoGeek]

EGYPT'S COPTS HOSTAGE TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD THREATS
By Michael Carl, Published on Sunday, 30 September 2012 08:02

Coptic Christians were warned if they protested against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during his visit to the U.S., they would suffer, reports from Egypt said.

The speech is over, but the retaliation is happening anyway.

Egyptian human rights activist and journalist Wagih Yacoub says protests or not, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is acting on those threats.

"We've seen it today. People are going to the Sinai, shooting at Christian's shops. They're telling the people to leave their homes," Yacoub said. "It's especially because they are Christians."


http://www.copticsolidarity.org/media-news-events/news/868-egypt-s-copts-hostage-to-muslim-brotherhood-threats

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- Mohammad Mostafa Kamel, a Muslim prosecutor at the Alexandria Criminal Court, and his two sons, aided by some hired Muslims, broke into the church of the St. Mary in Rashid at 4 PM today and demolished a great part of its alter. They came to the church with front loaders.

Kamel had no demolition order.

Read the rest here:

http://www.aina.org/news/20121008001210.htm

[CoptoGeek]

What 2011 meant for Egypt's Copts

October 9th 2011, a year ago today, Egypt witnessed a massacre against it's own people, committed by army soldiers, police and thugs, manipulated by State media and covered up by the Supreme Council of Armed forces. Today, many people are remembering this day with testimonies, blogs, and vigils for the victims, may they all rest in peace.
To mark this day, which I was lucky enough to walk out of safely and unharmed, is a simple documentation of incidents of violence against copts through out the year 2011. It is a vivid and telling truth to what the revolution has meant for many, the government's failure in protecting it's people, the systematic attack against the coptic community in Egypt, the army's crimes against protestors and unarmed civilians, and the continued denial of justice.

http://sarahngb.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-2011-meant-for-egypts-copts.html#!/2012/10/what-2011-meant-for-egypts-copts.html

[mabsoota]

thank you for reminding us of this aniversary, may their memory be eternal and may God bring comfort to all those who are remembering this day with pain.
may the luminous martyrs remember us before the throne of God.
is this your own blog, coptogeek?

[minasoliman]

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/55044/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-Mina-Danial-The-untold-story-of-a-revolutio.aspx

Tarek El-Tayeb, 25, had always hated Christians. He was known among his friends as Tarek “El-Salafi” as he followed the ultraorthodox school of Islam.

"I joined the Salafist school of Islam when I was 13 years old," remembers El-Tayeb. "According to my ideology, Christians were heretics and being a friend with any of them was a grave sin."

All of this changed when he met Coptic Christian activist Mina Danial.


...

"I never told him how I felt about Christians," says El-Tayeb. "He would sometimes tell me that he loved me and I would respond by saying that I hate him. It was just hard for me to get rid of these fanatical ideas all at once. It took time."

Since becoming a Salafist, El-Tayeb made sure he was civil to his Christian neighbors and colleagues, however, being friends with a Christian was simply out of the question. Danial was different.

"I just could not hate him. For the first time in my life, I found that I could not hate a Christian. I could not put this barrier of religion between me and him," El-Tayeb explains, "The emotions I felt towards him destroyed all of these shackles. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now. What is it about Danial that made him have this impact on people?"

...

"The Muslim Brotherhood, for one, are all hypocrites," fumes El-Tayeb. "On a personal level they call Mina a heretic, but publicly, they claim that he is a martyr."

El-Tayeb has abandoned Salafism since Mina’s death. He now considers himself a "moderate Egyptian Muslim." He is proud that he now has many Christian friends.

"Mina opened the door for me. He taught me what humanity meant," says El-Tayeb. "He opened my eyes and I finally saw Christians as they really are: good people, kind, charitable and not corrupt as the extremists claimed."

As for Mina, everyone loved him.

"How can a man win so many hearts, unless God loves him?" asks El-Tayeb. "There is only one Mina."

[Kerdy]

http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/55044/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-Mina-Danial-The-untold-story-of-a-revolutio.aspx

Tarek El-Tayeb, 25, had always hated Christians. He was known among his friends as Tarek “El-Salafi” as he followed the ultraorthodox school of Islam.

"I joined the Salafist school of Islam when I was 13 years old," remembers El-Tayeb. "According to my ideology, Christians were heretics and being a friend with any of them was a grave sin."

All of this changed when he met Coptic Christian activist Mina Danial.


...

"I never told him how I felt about Christians," says El-Tayeb. "He would sometimes tell me that he loved me and I would respond by saying that I hate him. It was just hard for me to get rid of these fanatical ideas all at once. It took time."

Since becoming a Salafist, El-Tayeb made sure he was civil to his Christian neighbors and colleagues, however, being friends with a Christian was simply out of the question. Danial was different.

"I just could not hate him. For the first time in my life, I found that I could not hate a Christian. I could not put this barrier of religion between me and him," El-Tayeb explains, "The emotions I felt towards him destroyed all of these shackles. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now. What is it about Danial that made him have this impact on people?"

...

"The Muslim Brotherhood, for one, are all hypocrites," fumes El-Tayeb. "On a personal level they call Mina a heretic, but publicly, they claim that he is a martyr."

El-Tayeb has abandoned Salafism since Mina’s death. He now considers himself a "moderate Egyptian Muslim." He is proud that he now has many Christian friends.

"Mina opened the door for me. He taught me what humanity meant," says El-Tayeb. "He opened my eyes and I finally saw Christians as they really are: good people, kind, charitable and not corrupt as the extremists claimed."

As for Mina, everyone loved him.

"How can a man win so many hearts, unless God loves him?" asks El-Tayeb. "There is only one Mina."

Thank you for posting this!

[dzheremi]

Yes, thank you for posting that. It is good to see Christians having such a positive impact on their Muslim acquaintances.

I've had Muslim acquaintances (I dunno if I can call them 'friends' given Islam's hangups about Muslims and Christians being friends...it doesn't really seem like we have the same ideas of how we should relate to each other) tell me that I helped them see Christianity in a different light, and on one hand I guess it's flattering or whatever, but on the other hand it's a little unnerving to be a token, essentially. "X is bad...oh, but not you, my friend...you're one of the good X's." Um...thank you? It's kind of uncomfortable, because the sense of being an ambassador for your religion and community is heightened, and if you end up in a disagreement it can all fall part pretty quickly. "You were so good when you agreed with everything I already think! Now the Christians/Buddhists/Muslims etc. show their true colors..." 

[minasoliman]

To me, it seems fitting to consider a certain holiness in Mina Danial guided for general goodness of others without imposing his religious views.  He taught how to be a good citizen, by doing good to others, even though if by virtue of his religious upbringing, but more so by virtue of his humanity.  He didn't convert the Salafi to a Christian, no doubt (at least perhaps not yet), but he did achieve to convert the Salafi's heart, a hope that destroys and refutes any notion that the Civil Rights Movement in Egypt is to no avail and much different than any other Civil Rights Movements in other parts of the world.

[Stavro]

Mina Daniel is an excellent young man who fought for the cause of Copts and secular Egypt in general. He will be remembered among Copts as a small version of Che Guevara. He is a martyr of Egypt.

Yet, the road to political saints and demonstration martyrs is not clear, given the violence in their actions and their very cause of revolution. 

[Kerdy]

Mina Daniel is an excellent young man who fought for the cause of Copts and secular Egypt in general. He will be remembered among Copts as a small version of Che Guevara. He is a martyr of Egypt.

Yet, the road to political saints and demonstration martyrs is not clear, given the violence in their actions and their very cause of revolution. 

I'm not entirely certain it's advisable to compare him to Che.

[Stavro]

Mina Daniel is an excellent young man who fought for the cause of Copts and secular Egypt in general. He will be remembered among Copts as a small version of Che Guevara. He is a martyr of Egypt.

Yet, the road to political saints and demonstration martyrs is not clear, given the violence in their actions and their very cause of revolution. 

I'm not entirely certain it's advisable to compare him to Che.

A small version of Che.   

It is all relative in the end.

[CoptoGeek]

Mina Daniel is an excellent young man who fought for the cause of Copts and secular Egypt in general. He will be remembered among Copts as a small version of Che Guevara. He is a martyr of Egypt.

Yet, the road to political saints and demonstration martyrs is not clear, given the violence in their actions and their very cause of revolution. 

I'm not entirely certain it's advisable to compare him to Che.

I think Stavro just means all the artwork & graffiti appearing around Cairo with Mina's image. I don't think he's comparing Mina's character to that Communist thug and murderer.  But, yes, most of Egypt's youth have been indoctrinated with Leftist ideology so many of them would see that thug as a hero & base some of the Martyr's images on him.  If you do a google image search, you'll get the picture.

[CoptoGeek]

The Christian Exodus From Egypt
For Copts, a persecuting dictator was preferable to the Islamist mob
By SAMUEL TADROS

Visit any Coptic church in the United States and you immediately recognize the newcomers. You see it in their eyes, hear it in their broken English, sense it in how they cling to the church in search of the familiar. They have come here escaping a place they used to call home, where their ancestors had lived for centuries.

Waves of Copts have come here from Egypt before, to escape Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalizations or the growing Islamist tide. Their country's transformation wasn't sudden, but every year brought more public Islamization. As the veil spread, Coptic women felt increasingly different, alien and marked. Verbal abuse came from schoolteachers, bystanders in the bus station who noticed the cross on a wrist, or commentators on state television.

But life was generally bearable. Hosni Mubarak crushed the Islamist insurgency of the 1980s and '90s. He was no friend to the Copts, but neither was he foe. His police often turned a blind eye when Coptic homes and shops were attacked by mobs, and the courts never punished the perpetrators—but the president wasn't an Islamist. He even interfered sometimes to give permission to build a church, or to make Christmas a national holiday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444358804578014733288327450.html

[Salpy]

Muslim Gang Attempts to Kidnap Egyptian Christian Mother, 4 Dead

(AINA) -- Ali Hussein, a 35-year-old Muslim gang leader, entered the home of a Coptic Christian family in the village of Abdelmassih in Deir Mawas on at 7 A.M. on Sunday and demanded that Hiyam Zaki Zaher, the 25 year old mother of two children, come live with him. Ali Hussein was accompanied by his two brothers, both ex-convicts. Two weeks before Ali Hussein told the Marzouk family that he would either take the woman or they would have to pay him 1,000,000 Egyptian pounds.

"The family managed to get Hiyam out of the village one day before Ali Hussein came to their house," said Roshdy Ibrahim, a relative of the Marzouk family. He said that when Hussein went into the home he was met by 24-year-old family member Ephrem, a university graduate, who rejected his demand, upon which Hussein shot him twice, killing him instantly. Roushdy said that Hussein had instructed 120 of his men to wait outside and come in and start shooting if they heard gunfire.

After the shooting of Ephrem the gang broke into the house. They encountered the father, 61 year-old Ibrahim Marzouk, a retired village bank manager, and killed him. They shot everywhere, wounding another three family members on the roof. Although Hussein was also killed under the hail of bullets, it is not clear who shot him.

Read the rest here:

http://www.aina.org/news/20121017202832.htm

This is truly sickening.  According to the article, the Salafis tried to keep the Copts from burying their dead, and are now calling for revenge for the death of the Muslim gang leader.  The Muslim gang also went into the stables and shot all the animals belonging to the Coptic family.  Evidently this gang leader had been terrorizing the local Coptic villagers for a couple of years, and the authorities refused to do anything about him.

[Salpy]

Also this:

Egyptian Teacher Cuts Girls' Hair For Not Wearing Headscarf

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) -- A teacher in southern Egypt punished two 12-year-old schoolgirls for not wearing the Muslim headscarf by cutting their hair, the father of one girl said Wednesday, in an incident that stokes concerns over personal rights following the rise of Islamist political movements.

The governor of Luxor province where the incident occurred called the teacher's actions "shameful" and said she had been transferred to another school. But rights groups say that some Islamic conservatives have been emboldened by the success of groups like Muslim Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafi trend in parliamentary and presidential elections and have been increasingly brazen about forcing their standards on other Egyptians.

The incident follows a surge in legal cases against Egyptians, mostly Christians, who allegedly showed contempt for religion. The trial of one, Alber Saber, opened Wednesday but was postponed.

http://www.aina.org/news/20121017193620.htm

[Stavro]

I think Stavro just means all the artwork & graffiti appearing around Cairo with Mina's image. I don't think he's comparing Mina's character to that Communist thug and murderer

Depends on which version of Che you like to adapt.

The legacy of Che can be discussed in a separate topic, but I meant the comparison in a very positive sense.

But, yes, most of Egypt's youth have been indoctrinated with Leftist ideology

No.

Anyone born after 1970 in Egypt would have been raised in an Islamic environment and Islamic ideology became the center of the social and political system. The left and right has to be defined with political Islam in the center.   

The youth who started the revolution before Islamists took over were leftist in that sense, liberated from the influence of political Islam and aiming toward as secular Egypt with the slogans of the French Revolutions on their banners. Mina was one of those and they are the exception.


     

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- Yesterday Muslim Salafis assaulted Christians after Sunday mass, angry that Christians from neighboring villages who have no churches attend mass in the village of Tala, el Fashn, in the Beni Suef Governorate. The pastor of St Georges Church Father Cheroubim Chehab could not go out of church for hours after mass.

Eyewitnesses reported that as Christians left the church, they found a huge mob of mostly young Salafi Muslims waiting for them, armed with batons. The assault lead to 5 Copts being hospitalized after suffering broken limbs, and the torching of two cars which transported the congregation from the other villages.

http://www.aina.org/news/20121029195111.htm

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- Although the abduction and forced Islamization of Coptic Christian minor girls in Egypt is quite common (AINA 8-11-2009), especially with the rise of Islamists in Egypt after the Muslims Brotherhood took over governing the country, the case of 14-year old Sarah has caused a stir.

Sarah Ishaq Abdelmalek, born on August 1, 1998 in the town of el-Dabaa, 130 kilometers from Mersa Matrouh, was on her way to school with her cousin Miriam on Sunday, September 30, when they stopped at a bookshop. Miriam want ahead of Sarah to school, leaving Sarah at the bookstore. No one has seen Sarah ever since.

After filing a missing person report with the police, her father received a call to tell him that he will never see his daughter again.

Read the rest here:

http://www.aina.org/news/20121101201755.htm

[biro]

Lord have mercy.

[mabsoota]

may God give them great strength to pass through this hard time.

[Salpy]

When Alber Saber's mother called police to protect him from a mob baying for his blood, something odd happened: they arrested him. They then threw him in prison, encouraged his cellmates to attack him, and finally took him to court where he was jailed for three months.

Mr Saber's alleged offence was all the more significant in light of the new constitution – being voted on by millions of Egyptians on Saturday – that is at the heart of Egypt's political crisis.

The mob in his Cairo suburb accused him of atheism and disrespect of the Prophet Mohammed, and demanded he be killed; a neighbour had alleged he had posted to his Facebook page the now notorious Islam-mocking video that triggered protests across the world in September.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/9762805/Egypt-constitutional-vote-Things-are-definitely-worse-than-under-the-old-regime.html

[Salpy]

Cairo -- The criminal court of Beni Suef (115 km south of Cairo) has sentenced an entire family to prison for converting to Christianity. Nadia Mohamed Ali and her children Mohab, Maged, Sherif, Amira, Amir, and Nancy Ahmed Mohamed abdel-Wahab will spend 15 years in prison. Seven other people involved in the case were sentenced to five years in prison.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130115124842.htm

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- Hundreds of Muslims came out of mosques today with hammers and destroyed a social services building belonging to the Coptic Church while chanting Islamic slogans. Security forces arrived after the building was completely razed. The 100 square meters social services building in the village of Fanous, Tamia district in Fayoum province, 130 KM south west of Cairo, had all the necessary government permits; it had a reception hall on the first floor and a kindergarten on the second.

But the Muslims insisted that it would become a church.

A meeting had taken place beforehand between the village mayor and elders from Muslim and Coptic sides and it was agreed that only the first floor was to remain and the second be demolished.

Mosques in surrounding villages called on their microphones this afternoon on Muslims to go and help their Muslim brethrens in the village of Fanous, because Christians were "building a church." According to rights activist Nader Shukry of Maspero Coptic Youth Organizations, nearly 5000 Muslims took part in demolishing the church property with their hammers, while shouting "Allahu Akbar." He said no one was arrested, not even the imams who called on Muslims to demolish the building; their calls fall under the crime of "enticement to violence."

http://www.aina.org/news/20130115185246.htm

[Kerdy]

Cairo -- The criminal court of Beni Suef (115 km south of Cairo) has sentenced an entire family to prison for converting to Christianity. Nadia Mohamed Ali and her children Mohab, Maged, Sherif, Amira, Amir, and Nancy Ahmed Mohamed abdel-Wahab will spend 15 years in prison. Seven other people involved in the case were sentenced to five years in prison.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130115124842.htm

Very sad!

[Cyrillic]

Sigh.

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- Thousands of Muslims from Marashda and surrounding villages attacked eight Coptic homes and businesses, including five pharmacies, which were looted and torched. Coptic-owned cars were also torched. The attack on the Christians was caused by rumor that a 55-year-old Coptic man, Nader Masoud, sexually assaulted a 6-year-old Muslim girl.

The Attacks on the village, which has a majority Christian population, started yesterday after 10 PM, when several Coptic businesses were torched, and Church of Abu Fam had its cross demolished and its glass smashed.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130118184819.htm

[Salpy]

Another kidnapping of a Coptic girl, but this time she was released due to publicity surrounding her case:

http://www.aina.org/news/20130202195322.htm

[psalm110]

What is goin on in Egypt again ??. and How are the Coptic people reacting to all this ? Are they rioting too ?. or staying indoors ?.

[mabsoota]

the coptic people are fasting and praying.
many neighbours see this and wonder from where the people get their strength and courage.
we don't talk about it much as we are aware too much talk can make things worse.
many friends of mine have travelled to egypt recently (business, weddings, funerals etc) and say the situation is delicate but people are living there and trusting God and He gives them the strength to go on.

above all it is good to pray for Christians who suffer.
prayer and fasting are the tools of our spiritual struggle.

[minasoliman]

A flow of refugees from Syria and Egypt is pouring into Moscow to escape from wars and violence in their country of origin bringing to light the inadequacy of facilities for the reception of immigrants in Russia. The complaint has been made by a veteran in migrant assistance, the president of the 'Civic Assistance Committee', Svetlana Gannushkina. In the past week a family of 10 Coptic Christians, including a child a few months old, presented themselves in their office.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130205165004.htm

[Salpy]

An Egyptian court is forcing two Coptic Christian boys, ages 10 and 9, to stand trial for "insulting the Quran," reports confirmed this week.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130212130446.htm

[Salpy]

(AINA) -- On Friday evening Muslims in the village of Sarsena, Tamiya district in Fayoum province (103 KM southwest of central Cairo) set fire to the church of St. George and hurled stones at it, causing damage to its dome; they broke the cross on top of the dome, demolished parts of its interior and defaced and destroyed its icons. This was prompted by Salafists Muslims who instigated the villagers to attack the church because the church is "an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved." They demanded the relocation of the church away from Muslim homes and are not allowing its priest Pastor Domadios to enter the church. All these events were witnessed by the security authorities but they did nothing to stop the attack.

The church was built in the mid-1980s and serves nearly 200 Coptic families. Three months ago the Muslims made a hole in the church to monitor the activities inside. Yesterday the Muslims said the church has to move and refused an offer from the church to buy the home of the Muslim neighbor. The Muslims also demanded the church not use a small plot of land it owns as a kindergarten.

The Muslim neighbor increased the size of the monitoring hole in the church to over one square meter.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130215203037.htm

[mabsoota]

Lord have mercy.

may the martyrs of fayoum pray for them.

thank God for those who stand up against the violence.

Muslims tried to assault Father Domadios and threw stones at him, but he was saved by a Muslim family who brought him away from the village in their car.
(quote from the same article).

may God bring peace to the hearts of those whose hearts are empty.

[Salpy]

ASSIUT, Egypt (AP) — Hundreds of Muslim villagers in Egypt's south have attacked Christian-owned stores in search of a girl whose family claims was abducted.

...

Bani Suef's prosecutor, Hamdi Farouk, said there was no reason to believe Christians were involved in her disappearance.
Security chief Ibrahim Hudeib said the girl left her house with her gold and passport in hand and may have fled with a local Muslim boy.

http://news.yahoo.com/muslims-attack-christians-egypts-south-205610047.html

[Salpy]

A political tangent was split off and put in the Private Forum.

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,50627.msg899618.html#msg899618

Anyone who wants access to the Private Forum needs to pm Fr. George and ask him for admission.

[Salpy]

More on the story from a couple of days ago:

Egytian Muslims Accuse Priest of Using Black Magic on Muslim Girl

(AINA) -- Hundreds of Muslims marched for the second day through the street of the Egyptian town of El-Wasta, 90 kilometers south of Cairo in Beni Suef Province, to protest the disappearance of a young Muslim girl, Rania Shazli, and accuse the priest of St. George's Church in Wasta of using black magic to lure her to Christianity.

The girl's uncle lead a group of Muslims to force the Copts in town to close all their businesses until the girl is brought back to her family. Coptic owners who refused were forcefully shut down. The Shazli family, supported by local Salafists, threatened to kidnap a Christian girl if their daughter is not brought back and vowed to destroy the church after prayers on Friday, March 22nd.

...

Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Hodeib, head of Beni Suef Security, said the girl has contacted her father more than once to inform him that she is out of the country and married to a Muslim man named Ahmed. He added that security forces are stationed in front of the church buildings, and warned against rioting, and that he would deal firmly with any violation of the law.

[mabsoota]

Lord have mercy.

[Salpy]

http://theorthodoxchurch.info/blog/news/2013/03/militias-of-the-mb-seriously-injured-coptic-activist-amir-ayad/

Militias of the MB seriously injured Coptic activist Amir Ayad

Mina Thabet – 26/3/13

Amir Ayad, member of Maspero Youth Union, founder of Christian Brotherhood group, and member of the fact-finding committee investigating the torture and imprisonment of Copts in Libya, was found Saturday morning at Al-Helal Hospital; with signs of torture across his body, after he had disappeared near the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Moqattam.

He said before he entered coma that he was kidnapped by the Muslim Brotherhood while participating in demonstrations near the MB headquarter in Moqattam. He was dragged into a mosque before they start torturing and beating him for hours with other demonstrators, and finally he jumped of a window and was saved by some people who live near that mosque.

[Dominika]

http://www.aina.org/news/20130406140653.htm - 10 Christians killed while they're defending the church in Al-Khousous.

Pictures of the new martyrs and from their burials: https://www.facebook.com/3adma.Zar2a

Lord have mercy! 

[DuxI]

May God help the Christians that suffer there!  Is the international community watching this?!

I have friend from Egypt, but after all these clashes, I lost contact with her. I  don't know what happened to her.

May the Mother of God protect them with Her prayers.

[The least of all]

Lord have Mercy on all those in Egypt

https://www.copticworld.org/articles/1901/

[Salpy]

The Copts can't even bury their dead in peace.  The following is from a lengthy article about an attack on the cathedral during the funeral for the above victims.  It seems security forces were joining in on the attack.  At least one Copt was killed:

Hundreds of Christians were under siege inside Cairo’s Coptic cathedral last night as security forces and local residents, some armed with handguns, launched a prolonged and unprecedented attack on the seat of Egypt’s ancient Church.

At least one person was killed and at least 84 injured as Christians inside the walled St Mark’s cathedral compound came under a frenzied assault from their assailants in the main road outside

...

Earlier, witnesses described how they were attacked by locals from Abbasiyya, the north-east Cairo neighbourhood where the cathedral is located. After being hit by rocks from the roofs of nearby buildings, the mourners were reportedly forced back into the cathedral compound.

...

The security forces positioned outside the cathedral launched volley after volley of tear gas into the compound. Some of the thousands of onlookers gathered in the road cheered as the canisters rocketed towards Christians perched on the walls overlooking the main street.

One young man, his right hand clasped around a shiny steel handgun, clambered on top of a petrol station alongside the cathedral and blasted a single round at those trapped inside. He was helped down by a friend who was also carrying a handgun, before they both jogged off through a nearby line of riot police who had been watching the young man take aim. Soon afterwards there was a flash from inside the compound as a young man stepped up on to the perimeter wall and fired a weapon towards the thousands of onlookers below.

...

Read the entire account here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/coptic-christians-under-siege-as-mob-attacks-cairo-cathedral-8563600.html

[CoptoGeek]

After the savagery at Maspero, nothing shocks me about Egypt anymore.

Bitter funeral for Khusous Copts   
Sunday 07 Apr 2013 - 08:01 PM

excerpt:
 
Once the funeral was over and the congregation began spilling out of the cathedral, they found themselves under attacked by unknown assailants who threw stones at them and hurled Molotov bottles at the cathedral. The Copts were forced to go back into the cathedral grounds and shut the gates for safety, but this was only a safety of sorts, since the assailants continued to target them with Molotovs and gunfire which they shot from the roofs of neighbouring buildings. Several climbed the top of the cathedral walls and shot at the Copts inside.

An Interior Ministry source accused the Copts of having started the violence, and said that the locals answered back in counter-violence. The Copts say this does not make sense since they had been leaving the cathedral to head to the cemetery to bury their dead, an act which they must traditionally complete before sundown.

The attack against the cathedral has been lasting for more than five hours; Coptic eyewitnesses insist they were being attacked by Muslim Brotherhood militias and hooligans. The security forces came in but, according to eyewitnesses, did nothing to disperse the attackers or to stop the attack. Instead, they fired tear gas canisters into the cathedral grounds where the terrorised Copts had taken refuge. Some 25 Copts were injured, while no injuries occurred among the attackers outside the cathedral.

In the meantime, the Copts in Khusous were again under attack. The Mar-Girgis church and the Copts who were going in and out of it were targeted with stones and gunfire. The Copts, who have lost all hope that the security forces will protect them, have been sending out frantic calls for the army to defend them

http://www.wataninet.com/watani_Article_Details.aspx?A=38821

[DuxI]

May God forgive me for saying this, but, it is time for USA and Israel again to install a puppet regime there and deal with this hooligans as needed.

May the Most Holy Mother of God protect the Christians there.

[Balthasar]

Children of Satan are waging a stealth genocide against Christians by using different tactics, hitting and running, and coming back when the foolish Christian is asleep while continuing to lead the usual hahaha, hihihi way of life with the enemies of God. How long does it take for Orthodox Christians to realize that socializing with the Muslims means energizing and empowering their own enemies.

Please stop socializing yourselves with the Muslims now!

The silence of the world is deafening!

Declare them guilty, O God!
Let their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish them for their many sins,
for they have rebelled against you.
But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous;
you surround them with your favor as with a shield. (Psalms 5: 10-12)

[Ansgar]

Children of Satan are waging a stealth genocide against Christians by using different tactics, hitting and running, and coming back when the foolish Christian is asleep while continuing to lead the usual hahaha, hihihi way of life with the enemies of God. How long does it take for Orthodox Christians to realize that socializing with the Muslims means energizing and empowering their own enemies.

Please stop socializing yourselves with the Muslims now!

The silence of the world is deafening!

Declare them guilty, O God!
Let their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish them for their many sins,
for they have rebelled against you.
But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous;
you surround them with your favor as with a shield. (Psalms 5: 10-12)

We are all angry, so I can understand your comment. However, there are two very good reasons why we should not do that.

1. That tactic has often proved to have the opposite effect.

2. Not socializing with muslims will destroy nearly all possibilities of convertion.

[minasoliman]

Children of Satan are waging a stealth genocide against Christians by using different tactics, hitting and running, and coming back when the foolish Christian is asleep while continuing to lead the usual hahaha, hihihi way of life with the enemies of God. How long does it take for Orthodox Christians to realize that socializing with the Muslims means energizing and empowering their own enemies.

Please stop socializing yourselves with the Muslims now!

The silence of the world is deafening!

Declare them guilty, O God!
Let their intrigues be their downfall.
Banish them for their many sins,
for they have rebelled against you.
But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous;
you surround them with your favor as with a shield. (Psalms 5: 10-12)

I'd rather listen to His Grace Bishop Rafael on this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuQa7LDvjs

[CoptoGeek]

Radio Interview - Premier Christian Radio interview
HG Bishop Angaelos RE attack on Coptic Patriarchate and Grand Cathedral of St. Mark in Egypt

Marcus Jones from Premier Christian Media Group speaks to His Grace Bishop Angaelos about the attack on the Coptic patriarchate and Grand Cathedral of St Mark in Cairo that occurred on 7 April 2013. The full statement by His Grace with regards to this can be viewed online via www.CopticMediaUK.com

http://www.bishopangaelos.org/node/643

[mabsoota]

very good speech by anba raphael above.
Lord have mercy.

here is an example of the young Christians showing love:
http://news.yahoo.com/lightbox/muslims-pray-during-funeral-victims-saturdays-clashes-between-photo-203629268.html

[Balthasar]

Egypt presidential aide blames Christians for cathedral attack, sparks fury

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/04/10/Egypt-presidential-aide-blames-Christians-for-cathedral-attack-sparks-fury.html

These lazy donkeys (an insutlt to the poor donkey) never, ever take responsibility for their own actions, always blame them on their victims.

I like His Holiness, Pope Tawadros' statement:

„There has been no positive and clear action from the state, but there is a God. The church does not ask for anyone's protection, only from God.

Why is there no video about the mob? Watch these images:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/10/troubling-photos-suggest-some-egyptian-police-stood-by-while-mob-attacked-christian-cathedral-burned-bible/

[Salpy]

None of those who attacked the cathedral have been arrested, but it seems four of the Copts who were in the cathedral when it was attacked have been arrested.  The victim-blaming continues:

http://www.aina.org/news/20130413143455.htm

[CoptoGeek]

The Siege of Egypt's St. Mark Cathedral
An Insider's Account
by Raymond Ibrahim
April 22, 2013 at 4:00 am


"So that's what we did, thinking police would come to protect and separate the clashers. We were surprised to find that the police began to intervene and become another party to the conflict, attacking the Copts who were fighting back against the [Muslim] youth who were attacking them, and shooting gas bombs into the cathedral compound, which caused extreme poisoning, to the point that the ambulance cars were not enough to take the sick."

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3680/egypt-st-mark-cathedral

[Salpy]

Video of the attack on the cathedral:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/28/new-video-shows-egyptian-police-allowing-attack-on-coptic-cathedral/#

It's very disturbing.

[Balthasar]

Video of the attack on the cathedral:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/28/new-video-shows-egyptian-police-allowing-attack-on-coptic-cathedral/#

It's very disturbing.

Very disturbing, indeed, dear Salpy!

The US Commissionon on Religious Freedom just released its 2013 Annual Report

http://www.uscirf.gov/images/2013%20USCIRF%20Annual%20Report%20%282%29.pdf

The report on Egypt is detailed, but soft, and politically correct

A Blessed Pasha!

[Salpy]

I just read the section on Egypt, and yes, they seem to have softened their tone since last year.  Too bad.  I thought they were more independent.

[Salpy]

CAIRO (AP) -- Amnesty International has called on Egyptian authorities to release a Coptic Christian schoolteacher held for contempt of Islam.

The rights group on Friday denounced the detention of 24-year-old Dimiana Abdel-Nour, a social studies teacher in a southern village near the famed city of Luxor. She was accused by some students of allegedly showing contempt while talking about Islam in class last month.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130510200413.htm

[Salpy]

Coptic-owned businesses and pharmacies in Menbal village, Minya in northern Egypt were attacked by a mob, resulting in extensive damage and several injuries.

"The thugs attacked my shop, assaulting it with stones. Some of the contents were damaged … they destroyed a number of Coptic-owned shops and pharmacies," Michael Sobhi, a witness from the village, told Mideast Christian News.

"The Copts of the village couldn't confront the thugs, as their numbers increased. They had firearms and blades, so Copts tried to avoid fighting with them," he added.

http://www.aina.org/news/20130515191744.htm

[DuxI]

Lord have mercy! 

[Tommelomsky]

Lord have mercy!
Please Lord: make these acts and attacks stop.

Godspodi pomiluj!
Godspodi pomiluj!
Godspodi pomiluj!

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OrthodoxChristianity.net > Moderated Forums > Oriental Orthodox Discussion (Moderator: Salpy) > Topic: Persecution of Copts in Egypt