Gov't, Religious Leaders Step Up Against Growing Coptic Persecution
Government officials and religious leaders stepped up in their recognition of the growing anti-Coptic attacks in Alexandria, Egypt with a call to press forward against the Christian persecution.
Government officials and religious leaders stepped up in their recognition of the growing anti-Coptic attacks in Alexandria, Egypt with a call to press forward against the Christian persecution.
"We're here to focus on the ongoing persecution of the Coptic community," said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Helsinki commission chairman of the U.S Copts Association, during a joint press conference Wednesday. "The situation in Egypt has not gotten better. It's gotten worse."
Ever since widely circulated Egyptian newspapers al-Midan and al-Asbua' sparked tension between Muslim groups and the Christian community early October, anti-Coptic hate crimes have been increasingly cited. The media had published several articles denouncing the Mari Girgis (St. George) Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria for reportedly producing and staging a church play that the papers alleged "insulted Islam and the Qur' an."
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Since then, several churches have been sieged by extremist Islamist groups by the thousands, a Protestant church leader was beaten, and other mob violent attacks against Christian non-profit associations and eye-witness accounts have been reported.
"A coordinated action plan appears to exist between the extremist Egyptian media's terrorist-supporting motives, Egypt's radical clerics, and the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest and oldest terrorist organization and a group that has, in the past several months, achieved a level of government tolerance," stated a comprehensive report released by the U.S. Copts Association yesterday entitled Alexandria's Native Christians Under Siege..
The Egyptian government has to speak out against the attacks, said Brownback, which they have not done. "[They] do have to bear responsibility."
U.S. Copts Association President Michael Meunier said the attacks have largely gone unchecked by the Egyptian government and called for an "international investigation."
During the press conference, a video clip of Pope Shenouda III, the 117th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, conveyed the emotional toll the increasing Coptic persecution has taken.
"We take our problems to God and leave them in His hands," he stated as he began to shed tears. "Why God? Because God controls all."
According to the speakers, not only does the Egyptian government have to play its part, but the United States must step up to initiate action on the part of the government against the worsening conditions in Alexandria.
The issue "must be raised at the highest levels of government," stated Rep. Frank Wolf, co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
"The United States must play an instrumental role in supporting democratic reformers in Egypt," said Fr. Keith Roderick, Washington representative of Christian Solidarity International and secretary general of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights. "The pressure generated within Egypt by the assertion of basic civil rights must be matched by the U.S. and other Western countries applying diplomatic and economic pressure on the Egyptian government externally."
As the severe Coptic situation is to be further pressed forward in the future and "as Egypt seeks to grow and improve in human rights," Brownback said he hopes to see Egypt grow to "the degree that people can practice their faith ... without fear or repercussion."
Meunier announced an international conference that will be held in Washington, D.C., later this month to further assess the situation in Egypt.
The U.S. Copts Association, founded in 1996 and based in Washington, D.C., advocates for democracy, religious freedom, and human rights in Egypt. The Association represents over 700,000 Egyptian Christians in the United States.
