Egypt Prosecutor Bans Publication of Warraq Massacre, Other Incidents of Violence Against Copts
Egyptian Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat issued a decision that bans publications from writing about the Warraq church case as well as other issues still under investigation by the Supreme State Security Prosecution.
Barakat ordered national, partisan and foreign newspapers as well as audio and visual media to adhere to the resolution.
Two armed masked men on a motorcycle fired indiscriminately at the Virgin Mary Church in Warraq, Giza, as people were leaving a wedding ceremony on October 20. The attack claimed the lives of four people, including a child, and wounded 17.
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Kamal Zakher, founder of the Coptic Secular Current, has said what happened in revealed imbalances within the Egyptian government when it comes to their response regarding violence aimed at religious minorities.
Zakher insited that Christians are "Coptic brothers" and not just "Christian Egyptian citizens." He added that condolences were only offered to the church and not to the Egyptian people who were the real target of this criminal act.
Zakher recently penned an article in the Bawaba News portal, where he wrote that the Warraq's incident may have revealed a failure of the security information apparatus in a context that supposes the expectation of such criminal acts. Especially with the availability of recordings issued by terrorist groups confirming that the phase following the dispersal of the sit-ins in Rabaa el-Adaweya and Nahda square would witness an extended wave of terrorist crimes against Copts, as a part of a plan to exhaust the state until it falls.
"What happened in Warraq was an escalation that moved from targeting buildings to targeting humans, after the reaction of Copts was different to the expectation of terrorists who attacked dozens of churches and Christian installations after the breaking-up of pro-Morsi sit-ins. However, there was a Coptic consensus that they would satisfactorily accept the cost of demolition, looting and destruction of churches if it is the price for the freedom of the homeland," Zakher wrote.
"Terrorists thought that targeting human beings would be more painful and would explode the wrath of Copts to turn to escalation before the international judiciary, which would realize the dream of terrorists of the fall of the revolution and the return of the obscurantist rule. But the Coptic reaction has exceeded and foiled their expectations when the church declared it would be engaged in prayer so that God opens the eyes of the perpetrators of the criminal act and inciters, who have lost their loyalty to the nation and their humanity under the influence of the terrorist ideology."
