1000's of Copts clash with Eygptian police

[TruthSeeker]

Coptic Christians clash with Egyptian police after Mass shooting

By Rob Crilly in Jerusalem
Published: 2:04PM GMT 07 Jan 2010

Thousands of Coptic Christians clashed with police in southern Egypt on Thursday during a funeral procession for seven people shot dead as they left a Christmas service hours earlier. The protesters pelted cars with stones and set fire to ambulances in the town of Nag Hamadi, 40 miles from the ancient ruins of Luxor.

The riots were sparked by a drive-by shooting. Three men sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd leaving a midnight Mass to mark the Coptic Christmas.

Egypt's interior ministry said the attack was thought to be retaliation for the rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man in November in the same town.

Tensions in the area have remained high ever since, in a country with one of the Middle East's largest Christian population – about 10 per cent of Egypt's 80 million people.

Bishop Kiroloss said he decided to end the traditional Christmas Eve service at St John's Church an hour early because of threats.

His parishioners had been abused in the street while he received a chilling text message warning, "It is your turn".

"For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas Eve," he said.

Bishop Kiroloss left the church minutes before the attack.

"A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machine gun shots," he added.

Six Christians and a security guard were killed.

Mahmoud Gohar, the head of provincial security, said police had identified the lead attacker, a known criminal.

He added that security had been strengthened in the town with checkpoints installed on roads throughout the area to ease fears of further attacks.

About 5000 people attended the funeral.

The country's Coptic population is descended from Egyptian converts in the first century AD. They still follow a calendar based on that of Ancient Egypt.

In recent years they have complained of increasing harassment.

They believe they are overlooked for government jobs and that police fail to investigate attacks against Christian property.

Last year the slaughter of thousands of pigs farmed by Copts in Cairo sparked protests by farmers who believed the cull was an attack on their freedoms – in a country where most people view pork as unclean – rather than an anti-swine flu or hygiene measure.

In November, hundreds of Muslim protesters torched Christian-owned shops in the town of Farshut, near Nagaa Hamadi, and attacked a police station where they believed the suspected rapist was being held.

Coptic Christians clash with Egyptian police after Mass shooting - Telegraph

 

[Gazzi]

Lets look at the US then shall we.....the champions of freedon and democracy

Iraq Body Count

Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War - CBS News

Unknown News | Casualties in Afghanistan & Iraq                                                              

Civilians killed by US troops | World news | The Guardian

Lawmaker: Marines deliberately killed Iraqis - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

US military admits soldiers killed unarmed Iraqi civilians

more to come

 

[Iggy]

Lets look at the US then shall we.....the champions of freedon and democracy

pVdHuhqO86Y[/media] - US KILLING CIVILIANS IN AFGHANISTAN !!!

Iraq Body Count

Bush: 30,000 Iraqis Killed In War - CBS News

Unknown*News | Casualties in Afghanistan & Iraq ************************************************************

Civilians killed by US troops | World news | The Guardian

Lawmaker: Marines deliberately killed Iraqis - Conflict in Iraq- msnbc.com

US military admits soldiers killed unarmed Iraqi civilians

more to come

Why are you dragging US into this?just counter the message dont shoot the messanger

 

[TruthSeeker]

Lets look at the US ....

Gazzi, Gazzi, Gazzi! You are soooooooooo predictable! What's the matter, can't stand to see some simple facts about how Muslims behave in Egypt? Do you feel personally responsible to deflect our eyes from the misdeeds of all Muslims no matter how unjust is their cause? Tsk! Tsk!

 

[dbc]

Gazzi, Gazzi, Gazzi! You are soooooooooo predictable! What's the matter, can't stand to see some simple facts about how Muslims behave in Egypt? Do you feel personally responsible to deflect our eyes from the misdeeds of all Muslims no matter how unjust is their cause? Tsk! Tsk!

TS, I've lived and worked in Egypt. Egyptians are warm affectionate and very tolerant. You must not condemn or judge an entire nation for the insanity of a few.

 

[TruthSeeker]

TS, I've lived and worked in Egypt. Egyptians are warm affectionate and very tolerant. You must not condemn or judge an entire nation for the insanity of a few.

I didn't intend for my words to condemn all Egyptians. Firstly, I was just expressing frustration that Gazzi can't read the posted news report without immediately attacking the USA, as if something the USA may or may not have done excuses the persecution of Copts. Secondly, DBC, if your Egyptians are so warm, affectionate and tolerant, why are the Copts so beleaguered? There must be enough Egyptians who are attacking the Copts, and enough Egyptians who look the other way, for such persecution to go on for years on end. I bet the Copts themselves would have a hard time relating sympathetically to your apology for their Muslim countrymen.

 

[Gazzi]

Well, firstly this is a defence forum, Pakistani defence forum, who are not responsible for the actions of Muslims around the world, and secondly, if one wishes to paint the brush of Muslim doing these things then you will be painted back the same way.

I don't wish to even start of India and their brutalities, the list would be endless.

Mods, I request this thread be closed, before I start to drag in Hinduism and Christianity for which I have been told off before not to humiliate members here with FACTS about their "wolf in sheepskin clothing" religions

 

[TruthSeeker]

Well, firstly this is a defence forum, Pakistani defence forum

How disingenuous Mr. Gazzi! This is the "World Affairs" thread section. Please look around at the topics that are covered here. If you take the initial post as a broad brush indictment of all Muslims, then that is your personal fantasy (or guilt) speaking in your brain. Such thoughts were not in the initial post or thread until you introduced them.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Egypt: Why Christian, Muslim clashes are different this time

By Sarah A. Topol Contributor / January 8, 2010
Cairo

An unprecedented attack on Coptic Christians leaving a church service earlier this week has prompted concerns that simmering sectarian tensions have turned a dark corner.

“For the first time, this kind of incident [against Christians] happened ... on a random basis,” says Samir Morcos, director of el-Masry Foundation for Citizenship and Dialogue, an Egyptian nongovernmental organization. “I hope that what happened becomes just an exception, not to be repeated and to become a phenomenon for the next month or years.”

Egyptian police have reportedly arrested three suspects in the drive-by shooting that killed six Christians and a Muslim security guard in Naj Hammadi, a town in southern Egypt, when gunmen opened fire on worshipers leaving midnight Christmas mass on Wednesday. The following day, Jan. 7, thousands of Christians clashed with Egyptian security forces at a funeral for one of those killed, while rioters hurled stones at police and smashed everything from ambulances to shop windows. The shooting is thought to be revenge for a Christian man’s alleged rape of a Muslim girl in November.

In Egypt, where Christians – predominately of the Coptic sect – make up around 10 percent of the population, clashes between the two groups are not uncommon. But whereas clashes have generally been tied to land disputes or social incidents that trigger targeted acts of violence, this attack was unusually severe and indiscriminate.

That, say some analysts, may prompt Copts to respond more forcefully than in the past.

“Always Copts in Egypt don’t respond, but I think after what happened yesterday ... they will start to ask for the rights to stop this kind of violence and perhaps they [will] react,” says Emad Gad, political analyst at the Al Ahram Center, a think tank funded by Egypt’s secular government. “The Christians will start to demonstrate and they’ll start to refuse, and perhaps we can see clashes after that.”

Copts often complain of systemic government discrimination. Last May, the regime culled 300,000 pigs in what it defended as a precaution against the swine flu epidemic.

In addition, a battle over alleged religious discrimination on state-issued identity cards is being waged in courts. Christian children whose fathers converted to Islam are labeled by the state as Muslim, despite cases in which their mothers raised them practicing Christianity – a measure seen as overt discrimination.
Escalation in sectarian violence

The start of clashes between the two groups can be traced back three decades to an increase of Islamic rhetoric by then-president Anwar Sadat, who began to refer to himself as a "Muslim president for an Islamic country," fomenting religious sectarianism.

Clashes, stabbings, and the deadly shooting indicate an escalation in sectarian violence that Mr. Gad attributes to the rise in fundamentalist Islam in Egypt.

“We are living in a very fanatic society ... if you see the Egyptian educational system, the textbooks, the speeches of the sheiks in mosques, all of these methods are used against non-Muslims – against Christians, against Jews – so it’s normal to see attacks,” he says.

The Egyptian government has not released information about the suspects, but Mr. Morcos says that ultimately it’s the nature of the violence, more than the personalities involved, that is the issue.

“The problem here is not the affiliation of these people, but the problem here is attacking people on the street ... this is a new phenomenon,” says Morcos.

Egypt: Why Christian, Muslim clashes are different this time / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

 

[dbc]

I didn't intend for my words to condemn all Egyptians. Firstly, I was just expressing frustration that Gazzi can't read the posted news report without immediately attacking the USA, as if something the USA may or may not have done excuses the persecution of Copts. Secondly, DBC, if your Egyptians are so warm, affectionate and tolerant, why are the Copts so beleaguered? There must be enough Egyptians who are attacking the Copts, and enough Egyptians who look the other way, for such persecution to go on for years on end. I bet the Copts themselves would have a hard time relating sympathetically to your apology for their Muslim countrymen.

“What's the matter, can't stand to see some simple facts about how Muslims behave in Egypt?”

“..Muslims behave in Egypt?” How do Muslims behave? When in position of power over others they become sadistic and take great pleasure in inflicting pain, suffering and humiliation – just like everyone else. Just like Zimbardo demonstrated in 1971 with the Stanford prison experiment, just as our very own people have done so often in the past and repeated recently in Abu Ghraib to the shock and dismay of the entire nation. IMO, We are still animals, yet to fully evolve and subdue our primal instincts.

Minorities don’t have it easy anywhere least of all in Egypt; it’s just a sad fact of life. And it’s not like the other 90% of the population leads a life of “champagne wishes and caviar dreams”. Most struggle to put food on the table, most struggle to survive , most are so crushed beneath the weight of their own problems they neither have the time nor the inclination to empathize.