EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANS FEAR REPERCUSSIONS OF CURRENT TURMOIL (written January 2012)
Egyptian Christians fear further loss of life and identity as fundamentalist Muslim parties win a large share of the vote in elections, reports Rachel Harris. She spoke to Egyptian Copts who are very worried about their future.
New Years Eve 2011 marked the first anniversary of the bomb attack outside Saints Church in Alexandria, Egypt which left 21 dead. Since then the number of physical attacks on Coptic Christians has increased. Singing hymns and holding crosses, dozens of Copts were run over by an armoured car on October 22nd last year. The army also opened fire on protesters that day killing 26 Christians in total. This happened during a legal demonstration to protest the burning down of another church in Southern Egypt. It’s still not clear which section of the army ordered the killings or why.
These attacks are seen by Copts as the latest in a long history of persecution and attacks by Islamist radicals. Copts, who make up 10% of Egypt’s 80 million people, have been marginalised, ignored and discriminated against since Sadat´s days. The mood of religious intolerance has increased alongside the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood and has risen to dangerous levels since the overthrow of Mubarak.
Nashat Farag, a Copt man from Cairo in his sixties, told me that since the fall of Mubarak “the situation has become real bad. At least a hundred Christians have been killed, thousands injured and around 6 churches have been burned down”. He told me there has also been “attacking and burglarizing of Christian stores particularly liquor stores and jewellers”.
What terrifies Farag, is the increasing power of a new Muslim party, considered to be more fundamentalist than the Muslim Brotherhood: “It is called Salafis. They are the worst Muslim sect. They believe in the Saudi beliefs which govern strictly by the Koran and the so-called Muslim Sharia. They are bad news.” This new group gained around 25% in the elections while the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party gained a further 40%.
He continued: “It is unfortunate that the liberals and the seculars who largely drove the uprising on January 25th failed to maintain their success at the polls. It’s clear that the Islamists will be the majority in the Parliament and the free Egyptian bloc will be the minority. The main concern for the liberals, the seculars and the Christians is the drafting of a new Egyptian Constitution."
Farag explained: “The new Parliament will pick the 100 member constituent assembly. Being the Parliament is dominated by Islamists the fear is that this will lead to an Islamic restricted religious constitution. If this took place, for sure it will create big problems whether on the political level or the religious level or the personal freedom level.”
Under such a regime change, Christians would be bound by Islamic law and therefore unable to practise their religion at all and driven underground, such as is the case for a million Filipino Catholic guest workers in Saudi Arabia who are prohibited from Christian worship.
When Nasser came to power in 1952, tens of thousands of Copts fled Egypt. Now many are considering leaving again. Nashwa Nashaat told me: “Christians are waiting to see what will happen and trying to get their money out of the banks and leave the country. It is like we are back in the 700s again and being conquered all over again.”
Farag emphasised: “When it comes to the church they become extremely sensitive and can fight to the death. No doubt they will be ready for the second persecution since the first was by Roman hands.”