By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
NAGAA HAMMADI, Egypt – Clashes broke out between nearly one thousand Coptic Christians and local police in southern Egypt outside the hospital where the bodies of six Coptic Christians were held. The Christians and one Muslim security guard were killed as churchgoers left Christmas Eve midnight mass, welcoming the Coptic Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7. Ten others were reported wounded.
The shootings were believed to be revenge for the alleged rape of a twelve-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man in November 2009. Since news of the alleged rape spread throughout the Nagaa Hammadi community, sectarian violence has gripped the southern Egyptian town. For five days after the alleged assault, Muslim residents ransacked the town, and set fire to Christian homes and businesses.
At the hospital where the bodies of the victims were being held, protestors threw stones at police and smashed ambulances. Police responded with tear gas, and witnesses reported the crowd shouted: “No to repression,” and “O blessed Cross we will defend you with our soul and our blood.”
The recent clashes are the latest in Upper Egypt (so-named because it is further upstream on the Nile River), an area that is known for its fierce tribal loyalties and practice of honor killings. In recent years, many Coptic Christians have reported increasing harassment by both residents and government officials. The Copts make up one of the oldest communities of Christians in the world, descended from Egyptians who converted during the first century A.D.
Mounir Megahed, director of Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination, said that sectarian violence has escalated in Egypt during the past year, with a new example coming nearly every week. Megahed also alleges that the Egyptian state is “soft on tackling the issue,” and that “they do not put people who commit these crimes to trials.” The most infamous of the violent outbreaks was the killing of twenty-one Christians in the southern Egyptian town of El Kosheh in 2000. Nearly ninety villagers were reportedly involved in the killing, but none were prosecuted, according to Megahed.
The lack of official attention to the sectarian violence in southern Egypt may also be rooted in cultural stereotypes and prejudices held by many Egyptians in the north. Salem Abdel Galil, the deputy minister for preaching at Egypt’s ministry of religious endowments said the violence was due to the “low standard of culture or education” in Upper Egypt, rather than any underlying religious intolerance.
For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Clashes After Egypt Copt Killings – 7 January 2010
BBC News – Clashes in Egyptian Town After Coptic Killings – 7 January 2010
The National – Egypt Fears Rise in Sectarian Violence After Church Killings – 7 January 2010
The Telegraph – Coptic Christians Clash With Egyptian Police After Mass Shooting – 7 January 2010
Voice of America – Attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt Leaves 7 Dead – 7 January 2010
