ONE EGYPTIAN Christian was killed and scores were wounded yesterday in protests against a demolition order for a chapel constructed within a Coptic community centre at Talibiya in Giza governorate. At least 20 policemen were injured, including the region’s deputy security chief. Nearly 100 arrests were made among the 3,000 demonstrators involved in the clashes.
The chapel had been built illegally because, under an Ottoman law which has not been rescinded, Christian churches must receive building permits from the highest state authority, now President Hosni Mubarak. In many cases, permits are refused.
Youssef Sidhom, chief editor of Al Watani weekly newspaper, and a leading member of the Coptic community, told The Irish Times that to get round the problem “word is passed from security that part of a centre can be secretly converted into a church.
“Sometimes this works, sometimes this backfires against the Copts. The protests went out of control in the morning after the Copts went to the governor’s office and met the assistant governor”, who upheld the demolition order.
Although the initial violence involved Copts and police, there were also clashes between local Muslims and Copts chanting, “Long live the crescent [the symbol of the mosque] alongside the crucifix.” Mr Sidhom said the question of the construction of churches is “one form of legislative inequality” faced by Copts. “Muslims can choose any site for a mosque and can easily get approvals and permits” through normal channels. Until 2005, the president also had to approve maintenance and renovation work on churches but this task has been assigned to governors.
While Copts played an influential role in the governance of Egypt during the period of British rule, serving as lawmakers, prime minister and foreign minister, the community has gradually shrunk in size and been marginalised since the king was overthrown in 1952.
Two reasons for this, Mr Sidhom said, are the growth of puritanical Saudi influence through “petrol dollars” and the repatriation of Egyptians working in the Arabian peninsula. He said this did not produce the sort of discrimination or persecution known in the West but “inequalities in citizenship rights” affecting other minorities and women.
He also blamed Copts living in rural areas for cutting themselves off from their Muslim neighbours by “withdrawing within their churches”, which established clinics, schools and sports centres for their congregations. He said the church had encouraged this separation. In urban areas Muslims and Christians mix normally, he remarked.
Following the recent attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad that left 59 dead and threats against Egypt’s Copts, the government, the National Council for Human Rights and senior Muslim clerics vowed to stand with the Christians and protect them.
The clashes in Giza erupted in the run-up to Sunday’s parliamentary election in which the handful of Coptic candidates standing are not expected to gain seats.
The minister of finance, Youssef Boutros-Ghali, is the most senior Copt in the government.
In recent months tensions have risen between the 90 per cent Muslim majority and the Coptic minority. Early this year Muslims set fire to Christian houses in the south after a Christian man allegedly flirted with a Muslim girl.