| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa North |
| Muslims, Copts clash near Cairo hospital, 19 Dead |
| 2011-10-10 |
| [An Nahar] Sixteen Coptic Christian demonstrators and three soldiers were killed in festivities with security forces in the Egyptian capital on Sunday, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent said, having counted the bodies in a Cairo hospital. Later, hundreds of Egyptian Mohammedans and Coptic Christians exchanged blows and threw stones near a Cairo hospital treating maimed from earlier deadly festivities, an Agence La Belle France Presse journalist witnessed. The festivities took place near a hospital in the city center which had admitted people maimed in festivities earlier between Copts and security forces outside the state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? building that killed 19 people. The hospital morgue housed the bodies of those killed. Some 200 to 300 protesters had marched on the hospital to meet up with several hundred Christians already gathered there, including family members of the dead and an estimated 156 maimed. Several cars were on fire in a large street next to the hospital, and Coptic protesters were tapping the cars to make petrol bombs. "God is with us, Christ is with us. They want that it (the state) be Islamic, but we will not leave," said one of the demonstrators. The Mohammedan protesters, for their part, chanted: "Islamic, Islamic", of their view for the Egyptian state. Amid scenes of mayhem at a Coptic hospital filled with grieving relatives, a priest named Daud told AFP at least five of those killed were mowed down by an army vehicle. "Here is the brain" of one of them, he said, pointing to white matter in a plastic bag next to the body and disfigured face of a dead man. "Wael, wake up my dear Wael. Speak to me," sobbed his sister in despair. Other bodies bore gunshot wounds. An earlier count gave 14 dead. State television had reported that three soldiers were rubbed out and dozens of their comrades were maimed as angry Copts protested at the burning of a church in southern Egypt. "They fired at my colleague. He was standing next to me... Christians, sons of dogs," a maimed soldier said on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? The protesters clashed with anti-riot police and soldiers guarding the building on the Nile in central Cairo, after thousands took part in a march from the Shobra district. A standoff degenerated as the demonstrators started hurling stones and set fire to two cars, an AFP correspondent said. The television channel said an army vehicle was burnt. Security forces had gun sex to disperse the crowd, sending dozens of people into flight. "Down with the marshal," the demonstrators chanted on the march to Maspero, referring to Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi who took power in February after president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... 's ouster in the face of mass street protests. Hundreds of Copts also took part in a protest last Tuesday outside the state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? building in protest at the September 30 burning of the church in the southern province of Aswan and demanding that its governor be sacked. The church in Merinab village was attacked after Aswan governor Mustafa al-Seyyed was reported as saying Copts had built it without the required planning permission, according to state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe? Sectarian festivities are frequent in Egypt where the largest Coptic minority has often been the target of attack and repeatedly accuses the authorities of systematic discrimination. Fifteen people died in festivities on May 7 after Mohammedan protesters attacked two churches because they believed the Christians were detaining a Mohammedan convert. The attacks threatened to push Egypt's precarious religious tensions to the brink, prompting the caretaker cabinet to pledge it would reopen closed churches and ease building restrictions. Copts make up roughly 10 percent of the country's 80 million people and they complain of state-sanctioned discrimination, including a law that requires presidential permission for church construction. They have also been the targets of frequent attacks, the deadliest in January when a jacket wallah killed at least 20 people outside an Alexandria church. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Coptic lady on Newsnight tonight saying this is orchestrated by the remnants of the Mubarrak regime, it will stop after elections are held. Mmm. |
| Posted by: Rhodesiafever 2011-10-10 21:09 |
| #4 Just a continuation of the freakin Arab Spring Ebbang. The Egyptian people just wanted freedom from their oppressive dictator( Whatever ).Just wait, christians will start dying in Libya before we know it and our fine "Nato" alliance will be partly to blame. |
| Posted by: Corgi Joe 2011-10-10 19:36 |
| #3 This is why Mubarak had to go, huh? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-10-10 12:21 |
| #2 good point JFM the headline should have read, "Moslems murder Christians- Again" |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2011-10-10 07:08 |
| #1 It wasn't clashes and it wasn't gun sex. It was the Army firing live ammunition on Copts. But of course they were only filhy Kafirs. |
| Posted by: JFM 2011-10-10 04:34 |