Persecution of the Copts

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In the last few years there has been increasing religious discrimination and persecution by the Islamic regimes in countries in which Copts live . These include Egypt , where Egyptian Christians , mostly Oriental Orthodox , only make up 10 percent of the total population. This makes them the largest religious minority in the country. But Coptic Christians are also discriminated against in Libya , for example .

While the Copts had experienced varying degrees of persecution throughout their history, human rights organizations today condemn the "growing religious intolerance" and sectarian violence against Coptic Christians in recent years, as well as a failure by the Egyptian and Libyan governments to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible to prosecute.

Cartoon by Carlos Latuff (2011) on the role of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in inciting religious hatred

Persecution story

Arab-Muslim conquest

The Muslim conquest of Egypt took place in AD 640, until then Egypt was Coptic Christian . Despite the political turmoil, Egypt remained a predominantly Christian country, although the discriminatory gradual conversions to Islam over the centuries transformed Egypt from a primarily Christian to a primarily Muslim country; at the end of the 12th century, Muslims formed the majority for the first time.

This process was accelerated by the persecution of Christians during and after the rule of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-amri llāh (ruled from 996-1021) together with the Crusades , but also by the adoption of Arabic as the liturgical language in the time of the patriarch of Alexandria , Pope Gabriel ibn-Turaik .

Discrimination since the 1970s

The last quarter of the 20th and the first decade of the 21st century saw a deterioration in relations between Muslims and the Coptic minority of Egypt. This is shown on the one hand by daily interactions such as the insulting of Coptic priests by Muslim children, but also by more serious events such as attacks on Coptic churches , monasteries , villages, houses and shops, especially in Upper Egypt during the 1980s and 1990s; this period is known as the Islamic Rebirth phase . From 1992 to 1998, Islamists killed at least 127 Copts in Egypt.

In the late 1990s , five historic churches, two charities and 38 Christian-run businesses were burned down in Minya Governorate , an "ancient center of the Coptic Faith". The destruction was carried out by “gangs of young Muslims wielding iron bars and Molotov cocktails and shouting 'Allah is great!'” The police were accused of having joined the attackers in several cases. Tensions arose in southern Egypt as terrorists invaded monasteries and threatened, kidnapped and tortured monks , for example in the 2008 attacks on monks at the monastery of Saint Fana .

The raids known as "collection" of "taxes" and extortion against Copts stems from the belief of Islamists ago that the traditional Dschisja -Kopfsteuer of non-Muslims to be reintroduced would. The Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood , Mustafa Maschhur , expressed this will in a 1997 interview. He also stated: "We are against having Christian MPs in the People's Assembly ... the top officials, especially in the army, have to be Muslims because we are a Muslim country." Christians could not be entrusted to fight for Egypt against Christian foreigners. Such statements by the Muslim Brotherhood and President Anwar Sadat enraged non-Muslims, especially the Copts. 1981 Sadat set the Coptic Pope Shenuda III. since he accused him of stirring up “interdenominational strife”. Sadat then chose five Coptic bishops and asked them to elect a new Pope. They refused, and it wasn't until 1985 that President Hosny Mubarak installed Pope Shenuda III. back on.

2007

In February 2007, Egyptian police arrested two Coptic Orthodox families in Armant after they came to the police station to report arson attacks on their homes; the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) states that the Copts were forced by the police to sign a protocol according to which they set fire to their houses themselves in order to blame the Muslims for the crime and to request police protection.

2010

In May 2010, there was a wave of Muslim attacks on Copts in Egypt, forcing many Christians to flee their own homes. Despite the desperate calls for help, the police did not arrive until after the violence had ended. The police even forced the Copts to "reconcile" with their attackers in order to avoid persecution, while not a single Muslim was convicted of any attack.

At least 21 people were killed in a bomb attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria on New Year's Day 2011. The then President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak condemned the attack. On Egyptian state television, the governor of Alexandria, Adel Labib, blamed the Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda for the attack. On March 5, 2011, al-Arabiya reported that official documents had been found at the secret service headquarters in Alexandria confirming plans to attack Coptic churches. The Egyptian lawyer and director of the al-Kalema Center for Human Rights (ACHR) Mamdouh Nakhla had already expressed the suspicion two days after the attack that there might have been accomplices in the interior ministry.

Recent examples of discrimination and violence against Copts (chronological selection)

2011

After the revolution in Egypt in 2011 , concern increased among the Coptic people about possible attacks. Sectarian violence was reported to have increased during the fall of Hosni Mubarak - with 24 dead, 200 wounded and three historic churches burned down.

On February 23, 2011 soldiers of the Egyptian army attacked the Anba-Bischoy monastery in the Sketian desert with submachine guns. In the incident, one monk is said to have been shot and another kidnapped. A total of 19 other employees of the monastery were seriously injured. According to a statement by the Egyptian Military Council, the soldiers "removed a few walls" that had been built on the streets and on land owned by the state. According to Bishop Anba Damian , the army had asked the monks in the previous weeks to build a protective wall around the monastery because the security forces had withdrawn and thousands of prisoners had been released from the prisons there.

On October 9, 2011, at least 24 people were killed in a demonstration by Coptic Christians in Cairo. It was the worst rioting in Egypt since the overthrow of ex-President Mubarak. The Copts had initially protested peacefully against the fact that militant Muslims had burned down a church in the province of Aswan . According to eyewitness reports, the army drove into the middle of the crowd with tanks and rolled over several demonstrators.

2013

In the Egyptian presidential election, 2012 the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood has Mohamed Morsi elected. He and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood implemented a new constitution in late 2012.

From January 2013, protest movements against the new government increased significantly. At the end of June there were huge mass protests. In April 2013, Saint Mark's Cathedral , the seat of the Coptic Pope, was attacked for the first time . The security forces let the rioters go and only intervened after an hour. The Muslim Brotherhood stated that the Christians were responsible for the attacks on themselves because they opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. Therefore, Christians should not be surprised at the anger of the Islamists.

On July 1, 2013, the army issued an ultimatum and two days later they arrested Morsi. Morsi's Islamist supporters set up protest camps. Since the eviction of the Muslim Brotherhood protest camps in Cairo, Christians across Egypt have been exposed to acts of Islamist violence. Within five days, supporters of the ousted President Morsi set fire to 63 churches and looted them beforehand. Five Catholic schools in Minia, Suez and Assiut burned down to the ground. Two monasteries were destroyed in the cities of Suez and Assiut, and an orphanage belonging to the church in Minia was badly damaged. In Cairo the convent of the Franciscan Sisters was also attacked. In Alexandria, an angry mob lynched a Coptic taxi driver who accidentally got into a pro-Morsi demonstration in the street. In Cairo, 58 houses, 85 shops and 16 pharmacies were looted and three hotels owned by Copts in Luxor were set on fire.

After the Morsi supporters' protest camps were forcibly evacuated on August 14, 2013, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood attacked more than a dozen Coptic churches. In the province of Minia, a monastery was completely destroyed and looted. Several Coptic excursion ships as well as shops and pharmacies were devastated and three churches were set on fire.

2016

In an attack in the Church of St. Peter and Paul (Cairo) on December 11, 2016, Coptic Christians were again the victims of an explosives bomber during Sunday mass. At least 24 people were killed and 35 people injured.

2017

There were at least two assassinations on Palm Sunday 2017 : 26 people died and more than 70 were injured in a bomb attack on St. George's Church in the city of Tanta north of Cairo. According to current information, eleven people were killed and over 30 injured in a second explosion in St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria.

On May 26, 2017, jihadists attacked a bus carrying Coptic pilgrims near al-'Idwa northwest of Maghagha on the way to the monastery of Saint Samuel . 28 people were killed, including children.

Another terrorist attack occurred on December 29, 2017 on the Coptic Church Mar Mina in Helwan around 25 kilometers south of Cairo, with 9 dead and 5 injured. The assassin had shot two people that morning.

2018

On November 2, 2018, there was another terrorist attack by the Islamic State on a bus with Coptic Christians on the way to the monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor . At least seven people were killed and 14 pilgrims were injured, some seriously.

Legal Discrimination

In Egypt, the government does not officially allow conversions from Islam to any other religion; No one can convert to Coptic Orthodox Christianity . Certain mixed marriages are also not allowed, which prevents marriages between converts to Christianity on the one hand and those born in Christian communities on the other; it also means that the children of Christian converts are classified as Muslims and receive a Muslim upbringing.

The government also requires government permits for the repair and refurbishment of churches or the construction of new ones, which are usually withheld. Foreign missionaries will not be allowed into the country unless they restrict their social charity activities and refrain from proselytizing .

In 2010, the Israeli-Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh wrote an article for the Hudson Institute entitled “What About The Arab Apartheid?” Criticizing the treatment of Christians in Egypt and the failure of the Egyptian authorities to target the perpetrators of prosecuting crimes against the Egyptian Christians.

Treatment of Coptic Women

Coptic women and young girls are particularly often abducted and forced to convert to Islam and to marry Muslim men. In April 2010, 17 members of the US Congress expressed concern about the situation of Coptic women as victims of "physical and sexual violence, imprisonment, exploitation through forced slavery or commercial sex".

However, these concerns are challenged in a November 17, 2010 report from the US State Department . According to the report, human rights organizations in Egypt found it difficult to verify the allegations, especially since they are rarely mentioned in the Egyptian media.

Nevertheless attacked 7 May 2011 Salafists the St. Mina Church in the Cairo district of Imbaba and set it on fire. They had suspected that a woman who had converted from Christianity to Islam and was about to marry a Muslim was being held in the church against her will. In the course of fierce street battles in front of the church, twelve members of the religious communities - both Muslims and Coptic Christians - were killed and 230 people were injured. The nearby church of the Virgin Mary was also set on fire. On May 10, there were demonstrations in Cairo with several hundred participants against the increasing violence and for stricter surveillance of the Salafists.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Egypt and Libya: A Year of Serious Abuses. In: hrw.org. Human Rights Watch , accessed January 24, 2010 .
  2. ↑ a b Moheb Zaki: Egypt's Persecuted Christians. The Wall Street Journal , May 18, 2010, accessed June 4, 2010 .
  3. ↑ Kamil, Jill (1997). Coptic Egypt: History and Guide . Cairo: American University of Cairo .
  4. ↑ US State Department annual reports on `Human Rights Practices in Egypt`, in Murphy, Caryle, Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience , Scribner; 1st edition (October 1, 2002) p. 329.
  5. ↑ Murphy, Caryle, Passion for Islam: Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience , Scribner; 1st edition, p. 242.
  6. ^ Funerals for victims of Egypt clashes. In: BBC News. Retrieved January 4, 2000 .
  7. ↑ Supreme Guide Mustafa Mashur talking to Khalid Daoud in an article printed in al Ahram Weekly July 5-9, 1997, in Murphy, Caryle, Passion for Islam , pp. 241, 330.
  8. ↑ Islam and democracy, John L. Esposito, John Obert Voll, p. 188.
  9. ↑ Andreas M. Rauch: Persecuted Christians: Worldwide disregard for religious freedom in The New Order, No. 1/2011 February
  10. ↑ Car bomb attack on Coptic Church in Alexandria ( Memento from January 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Coptic minority - At least 17 dead in attack on Egyptian Christians ( Memento from January 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Any Advance?
  13. ^ Egyptian Security Guards Withdrew One Hour Before Church Blast, Say Eyewitnesses
  14. ↑ Abouzeid Rania: After the Egyptian Revolution: The Wars of Religion. In: Time . March 10, 2011, accessed March 11, 2011 .
  15. ^ David Kirkpatrick: Egypt's Christians Fear Violence as Changes Embolden Islamists. In: NYTimes. May 30, 2011, accessed June 9, 2011 .
  16. ↑ Again attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt
  17. ^ Egyptian Armed Forces Fire At Christian Monasteries, 19 Injured
  18. ↑ Al-Qaeda No. 2 Alleges Incitement By Egypt's Copts
  19. ^ Many dead in riots in Cairo sueddeutsche.de, October 9, 2011.
  20. ↑ a b spiegel.de: Attacks on Copts: Egypt's Christians in danger
  21. ↑ Brutal attacks against Christians in Egypt , Tagesspiegel, August 18, 2013
  22. ↑ “Islamists take revenge on us Christians” , Church in Need
  23. ^ Radical Islamists apparently attack churches , Die Welt , August 14, 2013.
  24. ↑ Three churches torched in Fayoum
  25. ↑ Mursi supporters set fire to the church in central Egypt
  26. ↑ Egypt is sinking into violence ( Memento from August 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  27. ^ Another attack on Copts , tagesschau.de, May 26, 2017
  28. ^ Südwest Presse Online-Dienst GmbH: Several dead in an attack on the Coptic Church in Egypt . In: swp.de . ( swp.de [accessed on January 6, 2018]).
  29. ↑ Bus with Copts in Egypt catches fire. Deutsche Welle, November 2, 2018
  30. ^ Egypt. In: Religious Freedom in Egypt. Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, archived from the original on December 20, 2011 ; Retrieved December 14, 2011 .
  31. ↑ Khaled Abu Toameh: What About The Arab Apartheid? Part II: Hudson New York. Hudson-ny.org, March 23, 2010, accessed October 10, 2011 .
  32. ^ A b Joseph Abrams: House Members Press White House to Confront Egypt on Forced Marriages. In: Fox News . April 21, 2010, accessed November 8, 2010 .
  33. ^ Christian minority under pressure in Egypt. In: BBC News. December 17, 2010, accessed January 1, 2011 .
  34. ↑ 2010 Report on International Religious Freedom - Egypt. UNHCR, accessed July 13, 2013 .
  35. ^ Against Christians and “unbelieving” Muslims Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 9, 2011.
  36. ↑ Der Standard : Demonstrations against the latest wave of violence , May 10, 2011.