| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa North |
| Egypt arrests Christians, Muslims after arsons |
| 2010-01-11 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] Egyptian authorities have arrested 42 Christian and Muslim "troublemakers" after arsonists set fire to Christian-owned property in southern Egypt, police said on Sunday. Twenty-eight Coptic Christians and 14 Muslims were arrested after Friday's sectarian unrest in the village of Bahgura, provincial police chief Mahmud Gohar told state-run MENA news agency. "These people were troublemakers," a security official said, adding the authorities did not differentiate between Christians and Muslims. Eleven ships and eights houses owned by Copts were burnt in Bahgura on Friday, in the wake of a deadly drive-by shooting in the nearby town of Nagaa Hammadi on Coptic Christmas Eve. Egyptian police on Saturday charged three men with "premeditated murder" over the killing of six Coptic Christians on Wednesday night when gunmen raked worshippers emerging from Christmas mass in Nagaa Hammadi. Police arrested the three after the shooting outside a church in which a Muslim policeman was also killed. All three suspects are Muslims and had previous run-ins with police. The Nagaa Hammadi attack was the deadliest since 20 Copts were killed in sectarian clashes in 2000, also in southern Egypt. Copts, who account for up to 10 percent of Egypt's population of 80 million, complain of routine harassment and systematic discrimination. On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI condemned the murders in Nagaa Hammadi. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Even more incidious: Washington Times 7 Jan 2010 Ten years ago, I was in Egypt interviewing Coptic Christians who described how persecution by Muslims had become a way of life for them. The situation is worse now because of increased abductions of Coptic girls, who are forced into a sham marriage with a Muslim, raped, forced to convert to Islam and separated for good from their families. These are girls as young as 12 who are being grabbed off Egyptian streets. Photos are taken while the girl is being raped to blackmail her into converting, says Mary Abdelmassih, a Coptic activist. "She's told the pictures will go to her family," she told me. "They'd rather die than have that happen." Today (Jan. 7) being the Coptic Christmas, this as good a time as any to describe how these kidnappings are at epidemic levels in Egypt and how the plight of these poor women has become Christian sex slavery. Because local police are more often than not in collusion with the kidnappers, the families have to come up with enormous sums to get their daughters back. If the family is poor, their daughter is gone forever. The Assyrian National News Agency says very few of the girls who have been kidnapped since the 1970s ever get returned to their families and none of the kidnappers have been brought to justice. Link |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2010-01-11 14:22 |
| #2 Muslims soon released---with apologies. Christians never heard from again. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2010-01-11 14:08 |
| #1 Yup that's the way to Quell unrest, arrest he victims and call them troublemakers for complaining and not allowing themselves to be slaughtered quietly. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2010-01-11 00:20 |