Some 18 people in Egypt will be tried through an expedited criminal court in relation to a series of attacks against Coptic Christians who were holding a sit-in last May 14 outside a government building.

The 18 people have been charged with exhibiting force, thuggery, endangering lives, attacking peaceful demonstrators, disturbing the peace, disturbing public security, and destruction of public and private property, among others, Al Masyr Al Youm
reported.

The trials will be held in Cairo on May 21. A spokesman for attorney general Abdel Meguid Mahmoud said investigation is underway and the prosecution has the testimonies of police and some 36 victims, Al Masyr Al Youm said.

Last Saturday Coptic Christian protestors demonstrating at the Egyptian Radio and Television Union building at Maspero were assaulted in three successive attacks, killing one and injuring over 100 others, Assyrian International News Agency said.

Tensions have been high in Cairo since May 7, when Christians and Muslims battled through the night in Imbaba, a working class neighborhood, leaving at least 12 dead and two churches torched, The New York Times said.

Last Saturday, assailants first struck around midnight when two Muslims wearing Salafist clothes tried to force their way through the demonstrators, but were blocked by Christian youth, according to AINA.

One of the Muslims fled, while another was apprehended and brought to the police. The Muslim was identified as Ramadan Abdallah, a high school graduate of al-Ashar, AINA reported.

The second attack occurred almost simultaneously from a bridge overlooking the protest area, where a group of Muslims arrived in a minibus and threw Molotov cocktails, empty bottles and stones at the Christian demonstrators, then fled, AINA said.

The third assault took place an hour later when Muslims from Boulak, a poor neighborhood near Maspero, surrounded the Christians, threw Molotov cocktails at them and fired guns. They also torched a boat in the Nile that belonged to a TV crew, AINA reported.

One of the Muslim attackers wielding a knife injured the leg and hand of Samuel Sobhy, one of the organizers of the rally. The attacker was captured and handed over to the police, AINA said.

Threats of attack

Father Filopateer Gameel told AINA that he had received threats of a pending attack against the protesters. When he informed the police they said he should call the army as they could do nothing about it.

During the melee, Gameel read the absolution of sins for all Christian demonstrators, fearful that they may be killed, AINA said.

Gameel also told AINA that he blames Interior Minister el-Essawy for the chaos because the minister said on TV that the protests of the Christians should be ended by any means. In essence, Gameel said, this gave a green light to Muslim extremists.

Father Botros of Moqattam Church said, “These are not thugs. They are criminals hired by security authorities and the army to break up the Coptic sit-in. The army and the security should be held accountable. We have rights and we will take them.”

The Christians, who have been protesting since May 7, are seeking the release of 17 Christians who were sentenced to three years imprisonment on March 16, as well as 400 others who are also still in prison, AINA said. They also are demanding that Muslims who torched the churches in Soul, Moqattam, Abu Qorgas, Embaba and Alexandria are brought to justice.

There has been a rise in sectarian violence and crime in general in Cairo post revolution. A number of policemen have deserted the police force because they may be punished for past abuses before the revolution, The New York Times said.

There are also suspicions that a counterrevolutionary conspiracy is in the works that seeks to create disorder, and in this way bring down the military council, according to The New York Times.

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The tables were turned recently on a Muslim cleric when a Coptic human rights group sought a UK international arrest warrant against him for constantly issuing hate messages in Egypt urging Muslims to kill apostates.

The United Copts of Great Britain said that Muslim fundamentalist Sheikh Yousef al-Badri of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs should be placed under an international arrest warrant for saying, among other public statements, that “God has commanded us to kill those who leave Islam,” the Assyrian International News Agency said.

In Egypt Christianity is legal, but conversion to another religion from Islam merits death. Muslim fundamentalists equate apostasy with subversion and fear that this can eventually undermine Islam if permitted, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Dr. Ibrahim Habib, president of UCGB, said that while in Egypt legal action is possible against al-Badri, insofar as Christian rights are concerned impunity prevails in favor of Muslims. An international arrest warrant, Habib said, would send the message that “incitement to kill is a crime under legal and ethical norms,” the Assyrian News Agency said.

Al-Badri has many times called for the “spilling of blood” of Christians who were formerly Muslim leading many to hide in fear of death from fundamentalists. One widely known apostate, Mohamad Hegazy said, “Even if we are killed, the government will not convict our killers,” the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Hegazy was the first Christian convert to sue the Egyptian government, who had rejected his request that his official documents be changed to indicate his Christian faith. He has been a Christian since 1998 and filed his lawsuit in 2007, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Hegazy said by filing the suit he wished to set a precedent for others, and wants his two-year-old daughter, Mariam, to be raised openly as a Christian. His wife, Katrina, converted to Christianity before she met him, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

The lawsuit became a media sensation. Hegazy’s former lawyer Mamdouh Nakhla was forced to withdraw from the case due to death threats after al-Badri filed hateful charges accusing him of inciting sectarian strife, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Another hate message of al-Badri was issued on a television program in 2007 where he was a guest along with Hegazy. Al-Badri said the apostate deserved the death penalty, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

In February 2008 the court ruled against Hegazy, and soon after media reports ceased. But al-Badri’s public hate messages kept Hegazy visible and Islamic militants surrounded his home for several days. Hegazy escaped and is in hiding, but the extremists burned his neighbor’s home killing a woman who was inside, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Another Christian victim of al-Badri’s hate messages is Maher el-Gowhary who had secretly been a Christian for some 35 years but in 2008 filed the second lawsuit against the Egyptian government seeking official recognition of his faith, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Maher’s story was featured in the Underground at http://theundergroundsite.com/index.php/2010/05/egyptian-father-daughter-on-the-run-for-two-years-because-of-faith-12293. The court ruled against him in 2009, but because of a hate message by al-Badri seeking the “shedding of his blood,” Maher and his daughter Dina, 16, have been hiding for two years.

Dina drew media attention when she wrote a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama on a Coptic website saying Muslims in the United States are treated better than Copts in Egypt. Maher has been attacked many times, most recently on July 5 when a Muslim tried to behead him in the light of day. In April Dina escaped from an acid attack, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

A third victim of al-Badri’s hate speech is Abu Ziad who has claimed asylum in Europe. Al-Badri also urged Muslims to declare Jihad against America, endorsed wife beatings, and has supported suicide bombings among other hate messages, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

The UCGB says an arrest warrant on al-Badri for hate speech has legal merit because they incite individuals in Egypt to action and deny victims the basic right to change religions, a right that international law protects, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Victims of al-Badri’s hate messages also undergo extreme mental suffering, falling under the crime of torture as classified under the Criminal Justice Act 1988. The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) in January 2010 asked the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights to judge against the Egyptian government and on behalf of Hegazy and his family, the Assyrian International News Agency said.

Habib said the Egyptian government should respect the fundamental right of freedom of religion. He said, “Criminals have to know that they are not immune from the legal systems in the West,” the Assyrian International News Agency said.

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Ethnic cleansing in Iraq has caused half of 1.4 million Christians who lived there to leave the country.

Quoting the Assyrian International News Agency, the report said that these Assyrian Christians compose less than 4 percent of Iraq’s population.

They speak Aramaic, a dialect close to what Jesus spoke 2000 years ago, and are descendants of the first converts to Christianity.

Indyposted said that post Sadaam Husssein, many traditional protections that were given to non Muslims are no longer enforced due to various Muslim factions in Iraq.

Ethnic cleansing has taken place through bomb attacks, assassinations, rapes and kidnappings, Indyposted reported.

The report adds that Iraqi Christians who have fled are oftentimes denied asylum in other countries.

Many are living underground in Sweden.   According to AINA, Iraqi Assyrians in Sweden are arrested, put in a plane, then flown back to Baghdad.

According to Indypost, instability for Iraq’s Christians has been an outgrowth of the war in Iraq.

The London Telegraphnoted that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has branded Iraq’s religious persecution “of particular concern” and called on the Obama administration to intervene before the ancient religious communities are exterminated.

So far their appeal has not moved Hillary Clinton according to the London Telegraph, adding that “In these paranoid times, to defend Iraqi Christians from their Muslim fellow-citizens could be misinterpreted as an attack on Islam.”

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