Egypt court gives 12 Christians life sentences

By AYA BATRAWY, Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court sentenced 12 Christians to life in prison and acquitted eight Muslims on Monday in a case set off by religious tensions in the country’s south.

The Christians were found guilty of sowing public strife, the possession of illegal weapons and shooting dead two Muslims in April of last year in Minya province, about 220 kilometers (135 miles) south of Cairo.

The religious tension in Minya spilled over into violence last year when a Muslim microbus driver, angered by a speed bump outside a wealthy Christian man’s villa, got into a scuffle with security guards who beat him.

After returning to his village of Abu Qurqas that evening, he rounded up the villagers who then gathered outside an ultraconservative Islamist group’s main office there to protest his beating. According to rights researcher Ishak Ibrahim, the Christians nearby thought they were going to be attacked and shot from their rooftops down at the crowd, killing two and wounding two others.

For several days after, angry villagers torched dozens of Christian homes and stores.

The eight Muslims on trial in the same case had been charged with possession of illegal weapons and burning down the Christian-owned homes and stores after the shooting.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

Will Muslim-Christian relations improve with a new president in Egypt?

The religious freedom for Christians in Egypt (Copts) and other religious minorities hangs in the balance as Egyptian voters prepare to select a new president on the weekend of May 23-24.

This is the first open presidential elections in a generation. If voters favor a hard-line Islamist as president, existing religious freedoms are at greater risk. At least one moderate candidate favors less state involvement in religion.

Right now, the two major contenders for the presidency are Amr Moussa, belonging to the old guard around former President Mubarak, and Abdel-Moneim Abol Fotoh, an Islamist with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Until mid-2011, Moussa was Secretary-General of the Arab League and is widely recognized as an establishment figure. His hard-line criticism of Israel has proven to be popular in Egypt.

Abol Fotoh, a political moderate, quit the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 after decades of involvement in order to run for president. In the late 1990s, Abol Fotoh spent five years in prison for his political activism.

In the past week, popular resentment in Egypt exploded when the Election Commission disqualified 10 candidates, including three well-known and controversial figures: Khairat al-Shater (Freedom Justice Party, Muslim Brotherhood); Omar Suleiman (former vice president and spy chief under Mubarak); and, Hazem Abu-Ismail (an ultra-conservative Salafist). This week, Shater alleged that the commission’s move was an attempt the rig the election.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Coming Closer Through Faith: A Call to Undo Historical Tragedies

By Idris Tawfiq – The Egyptian Gazette 
Saturday, April 14, 2012 09:25:57 AM

Muslims believe that Islam is the religion of peace. The two fought one another for centuries over Jerusalem, the city of Peace. Much life was lost and many terrible things were done in the Holy Land, and after much fighting and bloodshed not much had really changed in the region when the dust finally settled. In fact, for all they achieved, the Crusades need never really have been fought at all!
It is worth remembering that Christians and Muslims have lived together in this region for fourteen hundred years. It is true, though, that there are hands at work trying to cause division between these groups. It is only natural that those who do not want Egypt and other Arab countries to be strong should do their best to weaken them. What better way of doing this than to stir up religious strife.
There are even some Arabs who travel abroad and appear on Western TV channels talking of religious oppression, and even religious persecution. It is time that these voices stopped their mischief, since the only ones to gain by it are people with no faith at all.  Let us return to the Easter festival. According to tradition, Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, is alleged to have discovered, in the early fourth century, many sites associated with the life of Jesus Christ, including what was claimed to be the True Cross on which he died.

The emperor ordered churches to be built on many of these sites. A church was built in Bethlehem over the spot alleged to be the place where Jesus was born, and another in Jerusalem over the spot where he is said, according to Christian tradition, to have died.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is said to stand on the very place where the Hill of Calvary stood. It is, of course, on Calvary that Christians believe Jesus was crucified.

The church was actually built as three separate churches, to mark three separate events.

One was for the hill of Calvary. Another was for the place where Jesus was buried, and the third was where he was said to have risen from the dead. When Constantine ordered that the churches be built, the spot was little more than a mound of rubble.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE EGYPTIAN GAZETTE 

Egyptian Christians await new pope, debate role

Pope Shenouda, who died on March 17, led the Coptic Orthodox church for four decades. He acted as the main political advocate for the nation’s Christians, who make up about a tenth of Egypt’s 80 million people, while Hosni Mubarak was in charge.

Since Mubarak’s ousting last year, Christians have become increasingly worried after an upsurge in attacks on churches, which they blame on hardline Islamists, although experts say more local disputes are often also behind them.

Shenouda’s death, aged 88, has added to those anxieties and left Christians wondering how to make their voices heard when the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists have swept seats in parliament and are likely to have control over writing a new constitution.

The pope’s post, temporarily filled by Biship Bakhomious, however, will not be filled swiftly.

FULL ARTICLE FROM REUTERS

Christians’ Fears in the Arab World

By OSMAN MIRGHANI

Pope Shenouda III has passed away, having led the largest Christian denomination in the Arab world for four decades. He deservedly received widespread tributes from across Egypt, with the exception of the unexpected conduct of some MPs affiliated to the Salafist al-Nour party who chose not to attend a People’s Assembly session, in order to avoid participating in a minute’s silence for the deceased, whilst another group refused to stand for the minute’s silence, instead remaining in their seats, prompting widespread arguments among Egyptians and others. These acts, and the controversy that accompanied them, reflect a major problem that Egypt, and even the region, will face in the days to come. This is a problem concerning the status of Christians in the Arab world and the underlying concerns with the rise to power of political Islamist movements in a belt extending from Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Sudan to Egypt. This area has the greatest population density in the Arab world, and could extend towards the Levant. There are those who believe that a change is inevitably coming in Syria and the Islamists will come to power there, with reference to the presence of Hamas in power in Gaza, the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and the Islah bloc in Yemen.

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL ARABIYA (ENGLISH VERSION) 

In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension Is On The Rise

February 25, 2012

Blackened rubble is all that is left of Abskharon Suleiman’s appliance store in the northern Egyptian village of Sharbat.

Suleiman is a Coptic Christian, and his upstairs apartment, as well as his children’s homes and shops, were gutted and looted in an attack last month by young Muslim men.

In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it’s because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community.

The incident in the rural community of Sharbat started as most interreligious clashes in Egypt do — with a rumor of an illicit liaison between members of different religious sects.

In this case, it was about a Coptic Christian man and Muslim woman, each of them married to someone else, explains Muslim merchant Magdy Abu Sheashaa.

He claims the man had suggestive photos of the woman on his phone, though neither he nor anyone else interviewed actually saw the pictures.

The rumor was enough to send a frenzied mob to the alleged offender’s house on Jan. 27. That building was near Suleiman’s property.

Abu Sheashaa says Suleiman’s grown sons fired handguns into the air to try to disperse the crowd. The mob then shouted insults at the Coptic family and demanded they leave the village where they had lived for two decades.

“They threw rocks through the windows and set our building on fire. I was sure we were going to die,” says Um Suleiman, the elderly wife of the merchant.

FULL ARTICLE FROM NPR

Pope of Egyptian Church Proposes Dialogue with Islamists Following Election

Pope Shenouda III, head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, held a meeting on Thursday with a delegation from the Anglican Church concerning a proposal to begin dialogue with Islamist groups that recently won a significant number of seats in parliamentary elections.

Shenouda and a number of senior bishops in the Orthodox Church met with the delegation, which was led by the head of the Anglican Communion, Safwat al-Bayaadi.

A church source told the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA) that the participants in the meeting discussed means of holding constructive dialogue with Islamists following their triumph in the elections. The participants agreed to respect the people’s choice in Egypt’s first democratic elections, irrespective of the results.

The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi-oriented Nour Party have so far won the majority of seats in ongoing parliamentary elections that began on 28 November.

Muslim Brotherhood Downplays Takeover Fears

CAIRO – The leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said Tuesday he is prepared to compromise with the ruling military on the formation of a new government, and that fears of the “Islamization” of the country are overblown.

Mohammed Badie, the Brotherhood’s general guide, spoke as Egyptians were voting in runoffs for the first round of parliamentary elections, which have been dominated by the fundamentalist group and the hard-line Al-Nour bloc.

“We must live in harmony not only with the military council, but with all of Egypt’s factions, or else the conclusion is zero,” Badie told the private Al-Mehwar TV station. “There will be reconciliation between the three powers: the parliament, the government and the military ruling council.”

His comments appeared to be an attempt to reassure Egyptians and foreign allies that the Brotherhood remains committed to democracy and does not want to take the country down an extremist path.

FULL ARTICLE FROM CBS NEWS

 

Egypt’s Doomed Election

EGYPT, the largest and most important country to overthrow its government during the Arab Spring, is careening toward a disastrous parliamentary election that begins on Nov. 28 and could bring the country to the brink of civil war.

As protesters fill Tahrir Square once again and violence spreads throughout Cairo, the military government’s legitimacy is becoming even more tenuous. The announcement Tuesday of a “National Salvation Government” may stem the violence for now, but the coming vote will not lead to a stable democracy.

The election is likely to fail, not because of vote-stealing or violence, but because the rules cobbled together by Egypt’s military leaders virtually guarantee that the Parliament elected will not reflect the votes of the Egyptian people.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Cherishing the Christian Presence in Egypt (a Muslim Perspective)

By Idris Tawfiq – The Egyptian Gazette

Being allied too closely to the former regime lost Al-Azhar credibility in the eyes of Muslims both here and throughout the world. In the absence of an authoritative voice to speak in the name of Islam, other voices rose up to speak on behalf of Muslims and these have left the world with a legacy of fanaticism and extremism that will take many years to overcome.

These voices, ignorant of Islam, have imagined a mood of hostility between Muslims and others that has never been a part of Islam’s message.

We are now living with the results of this. In recent months, the Christian Churches have been meeting to evaluate the situation they find themselves in. There is no doubt that as a result of many of the changes sweeping across the Arab world, many Christians have become fearful for their future, imagining that an upsurge in Islam will mean a rise in extremism and a threat to their safety. It is a sad fact that in recent months many thousands of them have packed their bags and left the Middle East altogether.

And yet, it is impossible to imagine a Middle East without a Christian presence. Who could imagine an Egypt without Christian and Muslim families living together, side by side, as they have done for centuries? Twenty years ago, no child going to school asked his classmate what religion he belonged to. Voices from outside, though, have managed to fuel mistrust and misunderstanding to such a level that sectarianism has indeed become a problem, both in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE EGYPTIAN GAZETTE