FYI
Last Update: Thursday, 29 August 2013 KSA 16:29 - GMT 13:29
Coptic Christians restrain anger after Egypt church attacks
Thursday, 29 August 2013
Bishop-General Macarius, a Coptic Orthodox leader, walks
around
the burnt and damaged Evangelical Church in Minya governorate, about 245
km (152 miles) south of Cairo, August 26, 2013. (Reuters)
AFP, Minya
Coptic Christians in the Upper Egyptian city of Minya are
managing
to restrain their anger despite a wave of devastating attacks on their
churches and institutions by enraged Islamists. Tensions are
still running high more than two weeks after the attacks in the city
some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Cairo but there have been no
calls for vengeance, nor any fiery rhetoric. “I say to the
Islamists who attacked us that we are not afraid of their violence and
their desire to exterminate the Copts,” said Botros Fahim Awad Hanna,
the archbishop of Minya. “If we are not hitting back, it is not because we are
afraid, but because we are sensible,” he said.
Enraged by a bloody crackdown mid-August on protests in support of
ousted President Mohamed Mursi in Cairo, Islamists lashed out at Coptic
Christians in Minya, accusing them of backing the military that toppled
the head of state. The Copts, who account for some 10 million
out of Egypt's population of 80 million, had already suffered
persecution in recent years. But they say they have never such a systematic
campaign as this. “We were expecting a violent reaction but not on this scale,
which suggests it was well prepared,” the archbishop said.
In the greater Minya province, where Christians account for about
one-fifth of the five million population, Christians say they have
suffered systematic and coordinated violence since mid-August.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 40 churches have been
attacked in Egypt since August 14, when the security forces launched a
bloody crackdown against demonstrations demanding the return of Mursi,
who was toppled by the military on July 3. The attacks have
been concentrated in Minya and Assiut, in central Egypt, where attackers
torched 11 and eight churches respectively, the U.S.-based rights group
said. Islamists accused Egypt's Copts of throwing their
weight behind the military coup that removed from power the Muslim
Brotherhood, from which Mursi hails. The perception was
fuelled by the fact that Coptic Pope Tawadros II appeared with army
chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he spoke on television to
announce Mursi's removal from office. At the ruins of Saint
Moses' church in Minya, Bassam Youssef, a Copt, despairs at the sight of
the rounded building with its clock tower, now ravaged by fire. “Some 500
extremists attacked the building and set it on fire,” Youssef recalled. “We
did not expect such violence,” he added, showing pictures of the church before
its destruction.
“Look at this beautiful mosaic that decorated the interior balcony,
there's nothing left and we will need five to six years to rebuild
everything.” The center of Minya is a tangle of shops bearing a
mix of Christian and Muslim names, and home to both churches and
mosques, some just dozens meters (yards) from each other. Not far from Saint
Moses' church, Um Saleh watched over what is left of the Coptic school,
which was also set alight. “We heard them calling for jihad (holy war) and we
rushed out of the area, terrified,” she recalled.
From one of the windows of the school, it is possible to see the
scorched dome of the Prince Theodore church. Several meters away, a
Coptic orphanage has also been burned. “May God forgive you
despite what you have done,” reads a slogan daubed on the walls of the
orphanage, now empty of its young wards. At the headquarters
of the Jesuit Brothers' development association in the town, Father
Biman is working to clear the debris after the attacks. Fire
destroyed the library, a nursery and the offices, but spared the nearby
church of Saint Mark, which has stood there for 125 years. “I
am very angry,” Biman says, before regaining his composure. “I also have
compassion for the attackers, who have been brainwashed”. He points to
his T-shirt, which has a slogan on it calling to spread love around the
world. Maria Hanaa, an official at the Jesuit association,
sees the attacks as a direct result of the community's antipathy towards
Mursi. “We demonstrated against President Mursi and it is the first time we
did it, and we paid the price,” she says.
“We marched because we felt that we were going to lose the country. We
thought that they were going to bring justice, but we saw that they were
only looking for power”.
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