generalspeaking

Under Deadly Siege

"The Christians have emerged from under the robes of the clergy and will never go back."
Ezzat Ibrahim, Minya, Egypt

Assertive pride in their heritage of Coptic Christian belief. Desperately angered at their fearfulness of being targeted time and again by Islamists in Egypt. An uneasy truce has existed for quite some time between Muslims -- Islam, in fact, is the usurper here, since Christianity predated Islam by over seven hundred years in the Middle East -- and the original Christians emerged in the Middle East. Ten percent of the Egyptian population of 80-million is Coptic Christian.

But they are under siege and have been for some time. Their churches have been attacked, and the parishioners as well. Small communities of Coptic Christians remain in Israel, Cyprus and Jordan. But Christians are under threat of violence, held in raging contempt by their Muslim counterparts everywhere in the Muslim world. There was a time, before the modern advent of Islamism when Arab Christians and Muslims tolerated one another's presence without rancour.

That time has long passed. The Christians of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories have seen their numbers dwindling. Lebanese Maronites, Syriac Christians, Assyrian Christians of Iraq and south-east Turkey, north-west Iran have suffered persecution for centuries, but that persecution has accelerated vastly. There is a disconnect between the animosity of Arabs toward Israel, and the tolerant safety that Arab Christians find in that Jewish state.

The newly-ascendant Coptic Christian pope, Tawadros II, made critical comments about President Mohammed Morsi. On his ascension he began to make greater equality demands on the Egyptian government, headed by the Muslim Brotherhood whose new constitution did enshrine protection for Christians and Jews, in theory if not in fact.

Tawadros II informed his followers that they were henceforth to consider themselves at ease to participate actively in the country's politics. Where once, and under his predecessor, Coptic Christians were enjoined not to bring attention to themselves for fear of offending their Muslim counterparts and bringing catastrophe down on the Church, they were now to feel free to assert themselves.

A Christian businessman who had been critical of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi before his downfall, who lived near Luxor in Nagaa Hassan, has paid for his outspokenness with his life. He and his nephew were pursued by a mob of Islamists who finally managed to capture the fleeing men in the street and hacked at them with axes, clubs and tree limbs until the older man, Emile Naseem, was killed, while his nephew survived to tell the tale.

Islamist mobs rampaged through Nagaa Hassan, burning dozens of Christian houses and delivering death to three other Christians, two days following the military removal of Mohammed Morsi. As the village's most prominent campaigner in a call to remove Mr. Morsi from power, Mr. Hassan was a predictable target of Islamist rage.

According to Luxor's security chief, Khaled Mamdouh, seventeen people, including eight Christians were being questioned about the violence and murders in Nagaa Hassan. Security forces were out in force in the village with its 20% of Christians among its 7,000 residents.

Labels: Christianity, Conflict, Egypt, Heritage, Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood

posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 12, 2013