This is what its like to be a Christian and live in a predominately Muslim country!
Orthodoc
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1.
v...@lycos.com Oct 23, 7:58 am show options
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox
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Date: 23 Oct 2005 04:58:04 -0700
Local: Sun, Oct 23 2005 7:58 am
Subject: 10,000 LAY VIOLENT SIEGE TO COPTIC CHURCH
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BREAKING NEWS: 10,000 LAY VIOLENT SIEGE TO COPTIC CHURCH
NEWS REPORT
U.S. Copts Association
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Web site:
www.copts.com Email:
c...@copts.com Alexandria, Egypt (10/21/05)-Over 10,000 Egyptian Muslim
protestors and Egyptian police on Friday, October 21, 2005 surrounded
the Mari Girgis (St. George) Coptic Orthodox Church in Muharram Bey
street, Alexandria. The violent protestors were incited by October
media reports alleging a church play had "offended Islam."
According to reports from U.S. Copts informants at the St.
George Church, since 12:00 PM CMT over 10,000 Muslim protestors have
flooded the streets outside the building, trapping inside the church
three priests and 70-100 Coptic youth. The protestors, armed with
Molotov cocktails and other weapons, brandished copies of the Qur'an
and demanded that St. George priest Father Antonious convert to Islam.
Officials deployed approximately 1,000 soldiers from the
Egyptian army and seventy armored vehicles to help subdue the mob.
Soldiers released tear gas and fired live bullets to disperse the
thousands chanting in the streets.
Friday's protests come after initial street protests one
week earlier and the Wednesday stabbing of a Coptic nun by a Muslim
student.
Protestors were responding to several inflammatory newspaper
editorials alleging the St. George church had produced a stage play
that allegedly "insulted Islam and the Qur'an." The production to
which the articles referred was a church play which was staged once
over two years earlier in 2003 for St. George's parishioners,
referred to the modern political problem of Islamic extremism, and
referenced neither the Qur'an nor Islamic theology.
Copts, the indigenous Christians of Egypt, number approximately
15 million people and constitute between 12-15% of the Egyptian
population.
Pictures of the protest can be viewed at
www.copts.net and
http://www.copts.net/forum/showthread.php?p=86447#post86447 .
The U.S. Copts Association, founded in 1996 and based in Washington
D.C., advocates for democracy, religious freedom, and human rights in
Egypt.
The Association represents over 700,000 Egyptian Christians in the
United States. The Association can be reached at
www.copts.com and
c...@copts.com 
