Since Israel has been accused of being a de facto Apartheid country due to the grievances of the Palestinians (this accusation has encompassed both the Palestinians in occupied territories as well as the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel), this time it is worth mentioning the plight of the Coptic Christians who are citizens of Egypt, since their situation can surely be compared to de facto Apartheid,
if these articles below are correct.
Note that Wikipedia is a democratic system and if you feel that any part of these articles are incorrect, then YOU should feel free to edit these articles and make the necessary corrections! Please do your own research and arrive at your own conclusions.
My personal opinion is this:
Please note that officially there is no "Sharia" or "Dhimmi" in Egypt, but instead there is a certain lawless social behavior that is practiced by the majority of the population against the Christian minority (which is nearly 10 % of the total population.) Thus my concern is not so much the "official" discrimination, but rather the unanimous social behavior in Egypt that basically discriminates on the basis of ethnicity or national identity that religion is identified with. On the contrary, I would argue, for example, that in the Ottoman Sharia system, at the height of the Ottoman Empire, before the decline of the Ottoman empire that allowed lawlessness in remote parts of Anatolia, the non-Muslim minorities were far better protected from injustice than in Egypt. Even in Iran, which is officially a theocracy, Jews have significant representation and at least the Iranian people as individuals are far less antisemitic compared to Egyptians at the personal level, despite the Iranian government. In contrast, I feel that it is the Egyptian people as a majority who are much more collectively harboring prejudice at the personal level. If the data in these articles is correct, then there is de facto Apartheid in Egypt against Christians, and it is not just the government's decision or the religion, it is especially the personal opinion of the majority.
The Coptic Christians in Egypt are estimated to be between 5 million and 15 million, thus between 7 % to 20 % of the population:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts#Copt ... dern_Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutio ... gypt#Egypt
EXCERPT;
Egypt
While the Egyptian government does not have a policy to persecute Christians, it discriminates against them and hampers their freedom of worship. Its agencies sporadically persecute Muslim converts to Christianity.[125] The government enforces Hamayouni Decree restrictions on building or repairing churches. These same restrictions, however, do not apply to mosques.[125]
The government has effectively restricted Christians from senior government, diplomatic, military, and educational positions, and there has been increasing discrimination in the private sector.[125][126] The government subsidizes media which attack Christianity and restricts Christians access to the state-controlled media.[125]
In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity; because certain interfaith marriages are not allowed either, this prevents marriages between converts to Christianity and those born in Christian communities, and also results in the children of Christian converts being classified as Muslims and given a Muslim education.[125] The government also applies religiously discriminatory laws and practices concerning clergy salaries.[125]
Foreign missionaries are allowed in the country only if they restrict their activities to social improvements and refrain from proselytizing. The Coptic Pope Shenouda III was internally exiled in 1981 by PresidentAnwar Sadat, who then chose five Coptic bishops and asked them to choose a new pope. They refused, and in 1985 President Hosni Mubarak restored Pope Shenouda III, who had been accused of fomenting interconfessional strife. Particularly in Upper Egypt, the rise in extremist Islamist groups such as theGama'at Islamiya during the 1980s was accompanied by attacks on Copts and on Coptic churches; these have since declined with the decline of those organizations, but still continue. The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases.[127]
Many colleges dictate quotas for Coptic students, often around 1 or 2% despite the group making up 15% of the country's population. There is also a separate tax-funded education system called Al Azhar, catering to students from elementary to college level, which accepts no Christian Coptic students, teachers or administrators.
Hundreds of Christian Coptic girls have been kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam, as well as being victims of rape and forced marriage to Muslim men.[126][citation needed]
On 2 January 2000, at least 21 Christians were killed by Muslims in the Al Kosheh Massacres in southern Egypt. Christian properties were also burned.[128][citation needed]
In April 2006, one person was killed and twelve injured in simultaneous knife attacks on three Coptic churches in Alexandria.[129]
In November 2008, several thousand Muslims attacked a Coptic church in a suburb of Cairo on the day of its inauguration, forcing 800 Coptic Christians to barricade themselves in.[130]
In April 2009, two Christian men were shot dead and another was injured by Muslim men after an Easter vigil in the south of Egypt.[131]
On 18 September 2009, a Muslim man, Osama Araban, beheaded a Coptic Christian man in the village of Bagour, and injured 2 others in 2 different villages. He was arrested the following day.[132]
On the eve of 7 January 2010, Copts were going out of Mar-Yuhanna (St. John) church in Nag Hammadi city when three Muslim men in a car near the church opened fire killing 8 Christians and injuring another 10.[133][134]
On 2011 New Year's Eve, as Christians were leaving a Coptic Orthodox Church in the city of Alexandria after a New Year's Eve service a car bomb exploded in front of the Church killing more than 20 and injuring more than 75.[135][136][137]
On 7 May 2011, an armed group of Islamists, attacked and set fire to two churches including Saint Menas Coptic Orthodox Christian Church and the Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin, in Cairo. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 12 people and more than 230 wounded. It is reported that the events were triggered by a mixed marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man.[138]
In July 2012, Dahshur's entire Christian community, which some estimate to be as many as 100 families, fled to nearby towns due to sectarian violence. The violence began in a dispute over a badly ironed shirt, which in turn escalated into a fight in which a Christian burned a Muslim to death, which in turn sparked a rampage by angry Muslims, while the police failed to act. At least 16 homes and properties of Christians were pillaged, some were torched, and a church was damaged during the violence.[139]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutio ... n_of_Egypt
EXCERPT:
Modern era
In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity; also certain interfaith marriages are not allowed either, this prevents marriages between converts to Christianity and those born in Christian communities, and also results in the children of Christian converts being classified as Muslims and given a Muslim education.
The government also requires permits for repairing churches or building new ones, which are often withheld.[20] Foreign missionaries are allowed in the country only if they restrict their activities to social improvements and refrain from proselytizing.
In 2010, Israeli Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote a piece for the Hudson Institute named "What About The Arab Apartheid?" in which he criticized the treatment of Christians in Egypt and the failure of Egyptian authorities to prosecute those who have committed crimes against Egyptian Christians.[21]
[edit]Sectarian attacks since 1970
The last quarter of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty first have seen a deterioration in relations between Muslims and the Coptic minority in Egypt. This is seen in day-to-day interactions such as the insulting of Coptic priests by Muslim children, but also in much more serious events such as attacks on Coptic churches, monasteries, villages, homes and shops, particularly in Upper Egypt during the 1980 and 90s. From 1992 to 1998 Islamist extremists in Egypt are thought to have killed 127 Copts.[22]
By the end of the 1990s, in Minya province "an ancient center of the Coptic faith", five churches, two charity organizations, and 38 mostly Christian-owned businesses had been burned. Witnesses described the destruction as having been carried out "by gangs of young Muslims wielding iron bars and Molotov cocktails and shouting `God is Great!`"[23] The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases.[24] And in Southern Egypt, there were problems in which involves terrorists going into monasteries, harassing, capturing, and torturing monks (such as the 2008 attacks on the monks of the Monastery of Saint Fana).
Some observers have connected the robberies, extortion and "collection" of "taxes" from Copts to the belief by Islamists that the traditional Jizya poll tax on non-Muslims should be reinstituted. Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashhur expressed this belief in a 1997 interview. He also stated that while `we do not mind having Christians members in the People's Assembly [national legislature] ... the top officials, especially in the army, should be Muslims since we are a Muslim country," and Christians can not be trusted to fight for Egypt against Christian foreigners.[25] Statements by Muslim Brotherhood and Sadat further exacerbated the situation of non-Muslims (namely the Copts).[26]
In 1981, President Anwar Sadat, internally exiled the Coptic Pope Shenouda III accusing him of fomenting interconfessional strife. Sadat then chose five Coptic bishops and asked them to choose a new pope. They refused, and in 1985 President Hosni Mubarak restored Pope Shenouda III.
In May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing "waves of mob assaults" by Muslims against Copts, forcing many Christians to flee their homes.[15] Despite frantic calls for help, the police typically arrived after the violence was over.[15] The police also coerced the Copts to accept "reconciliation" with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, with no Muslims convicted for any of the attacks.[15] Timemagazine reported on the fears of the Coptic population after the 2011 Egyptian revolution.[27] The New York Times reported on an increase in sectarian violence against Copts after Mubarak's downfall, with an estimated 24 dead, 200 injured and three churches in flames.[28]
[edit]Specific incidents
[edit]1980's
June 1981 — 81 Copts are killed by a mob of Muslims. Interior Minister Abu Pasha blamed the deaths on a lack of adequate security measures for which his predecessor Ennabawy Ismael was responsible (according to Abu Pasha).[29]
November 17, 1981 — Coptic priest Reverend Maximose Guirguis is kidnapped and threatened with death he does not denounce his Christianity and publicly convert to Islam. He refuses and his throat is cut leaving him bleeding to death.[29]
[edit]1990's
September 20, 1991 — A Muslim mob attacks Copts in Embaba, an outer suburb of Cairo.[29]
March 9, 1992 — Manshiet Nasser, Dyroot, Upper Egypt. Copt son of a farmer Badr Abdullah Massoud is gunned down after refusing to pay a tax of about $166 to the local leader of Islamic Group. Massoud's body is then hacked with knives.[30]
May 4, 1992 — Villages of Manshia and Weesa in Dyroot, Upper Egypt. After being Manshiet Naser's Christians for weeks, an Islamic extremist methodically shoots 13 of them to death. Victims included ten farmers and a child tending their fields, a doctor leaving his home for work, and an elementary school teacher giving a class.[30]
May 12, 1992 — A bloodshed in Manfaloot, Upper Egypt, on the Coptic Easter day with 6 Copts murdered and 50 injured, followed by some 200 arrests.[29]
15 & October 16, 1992 — Muslim mob attacks with burning and looting of shops and 42 houses owned by Christian Copts, with 3 Copts injured and the destruction of an estimated 5 Million pounds of property, live stock, merchandise and work places Kafr Demian in Sharqueyya in the Nile Delta.[29]
December 2, 1992 — Muslim mob attacks Copts in the city of Assiut, Upper Egypt.[29]
December 1992 — Muslim mob attacks Copts in the Village of Meer, Al Quosseya, Upper Egypt, murdering four Copts and slitting the throat of a Coptic jeweller for refusing to pay protection money.[29]
March 13, 1997 — Muslim mob attacks a Tourist Train with Spanish Tourists, killing 13 Christians and injuring 6, in the Village of Nakhla near Nagge Hammadi.
The terrorists increased the frequency of their attacks and widened it to include whom the viewed as collaborators with the security force, launching an attack on the eve of the Adha Eid using automatic weapons killing Copts as well as Muslims.[29]
1997 — Abu Qurqas. "Three masked terrorist" entered St. George Church in Abu Qurqas and shoot dead eight Copts at a weekly youth group meeting. "As the attackers fled, they gunned down a Christian farmer watering his fields." [31]
[edit]2000's
January 2000
Main article: Kosheh Martyrs
Al Kosheh, a "predominantly Christian town" in southern Egypt. After a Muslim customer and a Christian shoe-store owner fall into an argument, three days of rioting and street fighting erupt leaving 20 Christians, (including four children) and one Muslim dead." In the aftermath 38 Muslim defendants are charged with murder in connection with the deaths of the 20 Copts. But all are acquitted of murder charges, and only four are convicting of any (lesser) charges, with the longest sentence given being 10 years." After protest by the Coptic Pope Shenouda the government granted a new trial.[32]
November 19, 2000 — Muslim mob attempts to force a Copt to pronounce the Islamic faith declarations (Shehadas) then beat him to death when he refuses their demand.[29]
February and April 2001 — International Christian Concern reports that in February 2001, Muslims burned a new Egyptian church and the homes of 35 Christians, and that in April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a person who had Religious converted from Islam to Christianity.[33]
April 19, 2009 — A group of Muslims (Mahmoud Hussein Mohamed (26 years old), Mohamed Abdel Kader (32 years old), Ramadan Fawzy Mohamed (24 years old), Ahmed Mohamed Saeed (16 years old), and Abu Bakr Mohamed Saeed ) open fire at Christians onEaster's Eve killing two (Hedra Adib (22 years old), and Amir Estafanos (26 years old)) and injuring another (Mina Samir (25 years old)).
This event was in Hegaza village, Koos city. On February 22, 2010, they were sentenced to 25 years of jail.[34][35]
January 6, 2010
Main article: Nag Hammadi massacre
Machine gun attack by Muslim mob on Coptic Christians celebrating the Egyptian birth of Christ. Seven are killed (including a Muslim officer in his trial to defend them) and scores injured, and lots of lives ruined.
[edit]2010's
April/May 2010 — In Marsa Matrouh, a mob of 3,000 Muslims attacked the city's Coptic Christian population, with 400 Copts having to barricade themselves in their church while the mob destroyed 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars.[15]
January 1, 2011 (On New Year's Eve)
Main article: 2011 Alexandria bombing
A car bomb exploded in front of an Alexandria Coptic Orthodox Church killing at least 21 and injuring at least 79. The incident happened a few minutes after midnight as Christians were leaving a New Year's Eve Church service. It has been later thought that the previous corrupt minister of interior was behind the attacks in an attempt to cause strife between the Egyptian people.[36][37][38]
January 11, 2011 —A mentally deranged member of the police force opened fire in a train in Samalout station in Minya province resulting in the death of a 71-year old man and injury of 5 others.[39]
March 5, 2011 — A church was set on fire in Sole, Egypt by a group of Muslim men angry that a Muslim woman was romantically involved with a Christian man. Many Christian residents of Sole fled the village, with the remainder "living in fear". Large groups of Copts then proceeded to hold major protests stopping traffic for hours in vital areas of Cairo.[27][40]
April 2011 — After the death of two Muslims on April 18, sectarian violence broke out in the southern Egyptian town of Abu Qurqas El Balad, in Minya Governorate, 260 km south of Cairo.One Christian Copt was killed, an old woman was thrown out of her second floor balcony and ten Copts were hospitalized. Coptic homes, shops, businesses, fields and livestock were plundered and torched. Minyaa is well known for its ancient customs of tribal loyalty – if a member of a clan kills someone from another clan or family, the victim's family feel obliged to avenge their relative's death.
The government has been trying to prevent such tribal behaviour. Rumors spread throughout Abu Qurqas of many strangers and of trucks loaded with weapons coming into the village to carry out the threats during the Easter week. The terrorized Christian villagers sent pleas everywhere, asking for protection, even to Coptic groups in Europe and the U.S.[41]
May 7, 2011 — A dispute started over claims that several women who converted to Islam had been abducted by the church and was being held against her will in St. Mary Church of Imbaba, Giza, ended in violent clashes that left 15 dead, among whom were Muslims and Christians, and roughly 55 injured. Eyewitnesses confirmed the church was burnt by thugs [not Salafis] who are not from the neighborhood, as confirmed by the committee of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR). Copts converting to Islam are usually advised by the police to take out restraining orders against their families as the Coptic community does not tolerate converts to Islam. These incidents have fueled strife and problems between Copts and Muslims as in the famous case of Camelia.[42]
May 2011 — Copts in Maspero, Cairo are attacked during protests one dies. Certain churches start distributing flyers allegedly written by Islamists. It is later found that some Copts were distributing the flyers to damage the image of Islamists in local media. The Church later apologized.
May 18, 2011 — The Coptic Church obtained a permission in January to turn a garment factory bought by the church in 2006, into a church in the neighbourhood of Ain Shams of Cairo. However, angry Muslim mobs attacked the church and scores of Copts and Muslims were arrested for the disturbance. On Sunday May 29, an Egyptian Military Court sentenced two Coptic Christians to five years in jail each for violence and for trying to turn a factory into an unlicensed church.[43]
October 9, 2011
Main article: Maspero demonstrations
Thousands of Coptic Christians took to the streets in Cairo to protest the burning of a church in Marinab and were headed towards Maspiro, where they were met with armoured personnel carrier, APCs, and hundreds of riot police and special forces. Army vehicles charged at the protesters and reports of at least 6 protesters being crushed under APCs, including one with a crushed skull, has emerged. In addition, witnesses have confirmed that military personnel were seen firing live ammunition into the protesters, while the Health Ministry confirmed that at least 20 protesters have undergone surgery for bullet wounds.[44] In total, an estimated 24 persons were killed most of whom are Copts, while numbers as high as 36 and 50 were reported, including unconfirmed reports of the death of three army soldiers. The number of wounded protesters was estimated to be 322, of whom about 250 were transported to hospitals.[45]
Inciting more unrest, messages were broadcasted on Egyptian national television urging "honest Egyptians" to take to the streets to "protect the military" from Christian protesters. As a result, hundreds of people, presumably Muslim extremists, were seen wielding clubs and machetes alongside riot police chanting "the people want to bring down the Christians", and later "Islamic, Islamic".[44]
The events came against the backdrop of tensions simmering due to the violent military breakup of a sit-in staged at Maspiro by Coptic demonstrators a few days earlier to protest the burning of the church of Marinab in the Governorate of Aswan by the Salafis of the region.
August 2012 — In July 2012, Dahshour's entire Christian community, which some estimate to be as many as 100 families and includes Coptic Christians, fled to nearby towns due to sectarian violence. The violence began in a dispute over a badly ironed shirt, which in turn escalated into a fight in which a Christian burned a Muslim to death, which in turn sparked a rampage by angry Muslims, while the police failed to act. At least 16 homes and properties of Christians were pillaged, some were torche, and a church was damaged during the violence.[46]
18 September 2012 — A Coptic Christian schoolteacher was sentenced to jail for six years because he posted cartoons on Facebookwhich were allegedly defamatory to Islam and Mohammed, and also insulted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiyamembers and Salafist groups attempted to attack Kamel as he was led out of court, and rockets were thrown at the police car used to take him away from the court. However, the schoolteacher denied posting the cartoons and said that his account was hacked.[47]
[edit]Abduction and forced conversion of Coptic women
Coptic women and girls are sometimes abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men.[48][49] In 2009 the Washington, D.C. based group Christian Solidarity International published a study of the abductions and forced marriages and the anguish felt by the young women because returning to Christianity is against the law.[50]
In April 2010, a bipartisan group of 17 members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Office about Coptic women who faced "physical and sexual violence, captivity ... exploitation in forced domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation, and financial benefit to the individuals who secure the forced conversion of the victim."[48]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maspero_demonstrations
Maspero demonstrations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maspero demonstrations
Part of Timeline of the 2011 Egyptian revolution under Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
Maspero Demonstrations were staged by a group predominated by Egyptian Copts in reaction to the demolition of a church in Upper Egypt claimed to be built without appropriate license.[1] The peaceful protesters who intended to stage a sit-in in front of the Maspiro television building were attacked by security forces and the army, resulting in 28 deaths, mostly among the Coptic protestors, and 212 injuries, most of which were sustained by Copts.[2]
The peaceful protesters gathered in peaceful chants, angered by a statement made publicly by Aswan’s governor, Mustafa Kamel el-Sayyed, who, after the destruction of the church in Aswan, denied the existence of the church, and then later retracted his statements, and claimed instead that the construction of the Church was illegal. It was later revealed that extremist followers of the Salafist Islamic sect had pronounced threats and made demands for Aswan’s Christian congregation not to have any loudspeakers in the church and to limit the visibility of any Christian symbols such as crosses on the church structure. In order to diffuse tensions, the Aswan governorate organized a meeting between Salafist and Coptic leaders, wherein the Copts refused the latter demand of eliminating crosses and steeples. The threats eventually escalated to actual destruction of the church by the extremists, and to the subsequent statements by the Aswan governor. It was this incident that led to the protest, which is presented in the following details based on a number of credible sources.[3]
The march set out towards Maspiro from the downtown poverty-stricken neighborhood of Shubra, densely populated by both Muslims and Christians. Reporters agree that it was a sizeable demonstration comparable to the numbers at the January 28 protest, the day when Mubarak sent army vehicles to confront protesters.[4] Protesters were also angry about injury sustained by a Christian priest during the violent confrontation by army and police at Wednesday’s demonstration at Maspiro, when a smaller group had been demonstrating against the situation in Aswan.
[edit]Clashes
Persecution of Copts
Human rights in Egypt
This box: view talk edit
Reports suggest that the army began using violence even before the protesters reached Maspiro. Gunshots were heard from the end of Shubra Street and rocks were thrown from a nearby bridge. The protesters responded in chants against the Field Commander. The attacks suddenly stopped as the protesters proceeded on Galaa Street. As they crossed the Al Ahram headquarters, one rock was thrown at the building. Reports suggest this was in response to Al Ahram’s poor coverage of violence against Copts in a recent issue.[citation needed]
Army attacks resumed when the protesters turned the corner at Ramsis Hotel and reached Maspiro. Witnesses saw two armored personnel carriers crushing protesters to death, and soldiers firing wildly at the congregation, followed by riot police throwing tear gas. These incidents have been documented by video and later broadcast on CNN.[5] Reports count between 24[6] and 27 deaths, mostly Coptic civilians, and over 300 injured.
State television within minutes of violence first reported the death of three soldiers and requested that all noble Egyptian patriots protect the military against the “violent crowd of Copts,” also alluding to “foreign infiltrators” inciting violence. Eye witness reports which are attached to this brief, describe the response to the televised announcement by crowds of Muslims zealous to protect the military against allegedly violent Copts: “I saw groups in civilian clothing with sticks and machetes walking around yelling ‘Where are the Christians? Islam is here!’”.[7] This eyewitness stated he fled the scene as various crowds asked him whether or not he was a Christian. That evening, state television continued to broadcast a manipulated version of the story claiming the protesters were armed and that a “conflict” had broken out between civilians and military personnel with riot police, leaving deaths and injuries on both sides. Later, the Department of Health released another statement indicating that there were no military deaths and associating all bodies with deceased civilian protesters.[citation needed]
[edit]Response
According to an official statement by the Egyptian military, it was the protesters who first attacked the army resulting in the death of three police officers. They claim to have responded by firing blank cartridges, and that military personnel were being pulled out of their armoured vehicles and attacked by rioters, which they claim caused other military personnel to panic and "mow down" some protesters "accidentally" as they drove off.[8] Human rights organisations have dismissed the Army's response as partial.[9]
Several international media outlets, including BBC and CNN, picked up this version of the events. Egyptian state television later retracted the claims when it broadcast a mild report on the events the following day but continued to exhibit a reluctance to condemn the actions of the army.[10]
Public figures, including prominent Muslim and Coptic leaders, demanded the prosecution of army generals. The military council then called for the civilian Prime Minister to investigate the incident and identified 15 suspects to be tried in military courts. The military council and state television remain targets of heated criticism from prominent activists and journalists. The representatives at the state television have not issued any statements, but a newscaster has publicly expressed feeling "ashamed" to be working for an institution that proved "itself to be a slave for whoever rules Egypt".[11] Activists also blame state television for provoking sectarian tensions.
Governor Mustafa Kamel El Sayyed reportedly said that the demolition of the Church was agreed to by the local Coptic community and absolved himself of any responsibility in the tragic events at Maspiro.[12] The Ministerial Cabinet announced it will amend laws pertaining to the construction of houses of worship and toughen the anti-discrimination laws, but local human rights activists doubt the effectiveness or follow-through of the Cabinet’s approach.[13]
Identical promises have been made following other similar incidents (recently and in the more distant past) without any amend the archaicing laws that require only non-Muslims to receive permission to build houses of worship. In addition, the Egyptian military, which is responsible for these deaths, has taken over the investigation, prompting Human Rights Watch to issue a statement which concluded that "official denials suggest investigation will be flawed".[14]
[edit]See also
