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| Africa: North |
| Christians take over cathedral |
| 2004-12-08 |
| SEVERAL thousand Christians took over the compound of the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Egypt's capital today, hurling stones at riot police in a protest over a woman who was allegedly forced to convert to Islam. The stones injured at least 30 people, including 21 police. Some policemen were seen wiping blood from their heads in the streets outside the compound in the city's Abbasiya district. Police sealed off the compound, parking 40 trucks around its walls, and closed adjacent roads. Protests began at the cathedral on Sunday as word spread that the wife of a Coptic priest in Abou al-Matameer, a town 135km north of Cairo, had been forced by her civil service boss, a Muslim, to convert. A security official has said the 47-year-old woman, Wafaa Constantine, was found living in a Muslim household in Cairo and had become a Muslim of her own free will. Some Copts, as Egypt's Christians are known, said Constantine had been kidnapped and taken to Cairo with the complicity of local authorities. The facts of the case are not clear, but have highlighted the potential for friction between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority. The Copts account for an estimated 10 per cent of the population of 70 million. Last night a brother-in-law of Constantine entered the compound and told the protesters through a loudspeaker that the woman had returned home. "My brothers and sisters, my brother just told me that she arrived in a safe place and she is in good condition," Meshiha Maawad said. The protesters clapped and whistled, but refused to leave. They demanded that Pope Shenouda III, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, speak to them. The Pope has offices in the compound. An assistant to the Pope, Bishop Yoanas, told the crowd that the Pope had left the compound because he was "upset" that the authorities delayed Constantine's return. Some protesters said that they would not leave the until they saw Constantine herself. But, as the night wore on, many did leave. Among the injured was Matyas Abdel Maseh, a young priest with a bandage around his head. Leaning against a wall for support, he said he was hit by a stone thrown by the police as he tried to stop the demonstrators from getting too close to the compound's gates. "The Government is attacking Christians," he said. "The army outside the gates is attacking us with stones." The protesters got the "stones" by chipping pieces of masonry from steps and other pavings in the compound. Accusations of forced conversion surface every year in Egypt. The editor of the Coptic newspaper Watani, Youssef Sidhom, accused the government and local authorities of being reluctant to investigate and prosecute cases of forced conversion. |
| Posted by:tipper |