"I will stand with them [the Muslims] should the political winds shift in
an ugly direction."
Barack Hussein Obama / The Audacity of Hope
----------------------------------
37 Churches Destroyed in Egypt, Authorities Do 'Little or Nothing,'
According to Human Rights Watch
Morgan Lee ("The Christian Post," August 23, 2013)
A new report from Human Rights Watch has revealed the extremity of the
bloodshed against Egypt's Coptic Christians. Since Aug. 14, 37 churches have
been either destroyed or badly damaged, and at least five others were
attacked, leaving at least four people dead. In addition, scores of Christian
businesses and schools have been looted, vandalized and torched.
But the egregiousness nature of these actions is only matched by the lack
of response by Egyptian authorities themselves, said Joe Stork, the acting
Human Rights Watch Middle East Director.
"For weeks, everyone could see these attacks coming, with Muslim
Brotherhood members accusing Coptic Christians of a role in Mohammad Morsi's
ouster,
but the authorities did little or nothing to prevent them. Now dozens of
churches are smoldering ruins, and Christians throughout the country are
hiding in their homes, afraid for their very lives," said Joe Stork in a
statement.
Tamara Alrifai, the Human Rights Watch Advocacy and Communications director
for the Middle East and North Africa Division, explained that before last
week's confrontation between the military and pro-Morsi supporters, there
were signs that the Copts would be targeted.
"Over the past few weeks there has been an incitement discourse against
Christians from political leadership and there have not been enough measures
taken by police and security," Alfirai told The Christian Post. "The attacks
seemed inevitable. The government is responsible for protecting its own
population when the signs are clear."
In some instances, the threats that the Copts' aggressors utilized were
blatant; in the city of Minya, residents told Human Rights Watch that
Coptic-owned storefronts had been marked with a black "X" and they were
subsequently targeted for attack.
Indeed, Human Rights Watch asserted that "in the vast majority of the 42
cases [we] documented, neither the police nor the military were present at
the start or during the attack," suggesting that the passivity of the
security forces served to embolden and encourage acts of terror.
In many instances, individuals notified security officials, only for them
to be dismissed. In one situation, a resident begged a police officer to
help him defend his business, only for the officer to refuse to leave, saying
he was only charged with protecting his station.
John Sameer of Minya told Human Rights Watch he witnessed a crowd
vandalizing and burning a church before following a gang of men who performed
the
same on "approximately 20 shops, three other churches, the Coptic boys'
school complex, the Saint Joseph's girls' school, the Gunud al-Maseeh
orphanage,
and the Jesuit community center."
Despite calls for to emergency vehicles, Sameer said that security never
arrived.
However, Human Rights Watch also documented some episodes of violence
against security forces in the same towns that Copts were attacked.
In Minya, the same town that Sameer watched gangs torch businesses, schools
and churches, Major General Abdelaziz Qura, head of the Minya security
directorate, told Human Rights Watch that on Aug. 14, when news of the sit-in
dispersal reached the city, "groups simultaneously attacked police stations
and some churches in Minya. They were shooting live fire at security
forces, and the security forces did not leave their positions because they
didn't want anyone to free the prisoners [held in police stations], like what
happened in January 2011."
The group also burned six police stations to the ground and killed 13
police officers.
Human Rights Watch hopes that their documentation motivates the
international community to pressure Egyptian authorities to clamp down on the
violence
against the Copts.
"The international community does have a responsibility to curb violence
altogether [but] there must also be a strong message against incitement to
violence and hatred of the others," said Alrifai. "The Copts are part and
parcel of Egyptian society. They should be treated as equal citizens under
law, equal to everyone else. They belong to Egypt as every other Egyptian and
there should not be a way forward in Egypt without them."
--
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Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
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