Cairo clashes leave 24 dead after Coptic church protest

Yolande Knell describes the scene in Cairo as Coptic Christians mount further protests

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded in the worst violence since Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Clashes broke out after a protest in Cairo against an attack on a church in Aswan province last week which Coptic Christians blame on Muslim radicals.

Egyptian TV showed protesters clashing with security forces as army vehicles burned outside the state TV building.

A curfew is in force. The cabinet is to hold an emergency meeting on Monday.

Sectarian tensions have increased in recent months in Egypt.

The Copts - who make up about 10% of the population - accuse the governing military council of being too lenient on the perpetrators of a string of anti-Christian attacks.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf appealed to Egyptians not to give in to sectarian strife.

"What is taking place are not clashes between Muslims and Christians but attempts to provoke chaos and dissent," he said on his Facebook page.

State TV has announce a curfew in some parts of Cairo from 02:00 to 07:00 local time (00:00 to 05:00 GMT).

"I saw civilians running past my window as troops fired wildly into the crowds”

Nigel Hetherington Eyewitness

Stones hurled

Thousands - mainly but not exclusively Christians - joined the initial march from the Shubra district of northern Cairo to the state TV building in Maspero Square where they intended to hold a sit-in.

They were calling on the military council to sack the governor of Aswan province. They also accused state TV of fanning the flames of anti-Christian agitation.

But the demonstrators said they were assaulted by attackers in plain clothes before the clashes with the security forces broke out.

The clashes began outside the state TV building but soon spread to Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the demonstrations which led to President Mubarak's resignation.

Thousands joined in the street violence, hurling stones and tearing up the pavement for ammunition.

Smoke from tear gas and burning military vehicles filled the air in Maspero Square. Some protesters reported hearing gunfire.

Eyewitness Nigel Hetherington says troops fired rubber bullets and teargas into crowds. "I saw civilians running past my window as troops fired wildly into the crowds," he told the BBC.

The ministry of health said that at least 24 people had died killed and 212 had been wounded in the violence.

Of this number, 107 were civilians and 86 were security forces, ministry spokesman Hisham Shiha told the BBC.
 

Simmering tensions

Protesters also called for the resignation of the military council, in particular its chairman, Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi.

The BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo says sectarian tensions have simmered in the political and security vacuum that has developed in the past couple of months.

As well as the clashes between police and protesters, other groups of thugs were also involved, our correspondent says - part of the pattern of sectarian violence in Egypt.

Christians have been worried by the increasing show of strength by ultra-conservative Islamists.

In May, 12 people died in attacks on Coptic churches. In March, 13 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and Copts in Tahrir Square.

This latest violence comes ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for 28 November, the first such vote since President Mubarak stepped down.

The Copts, the largest minority in Egypt, complain of discrimination, including a law requiring presidential permission for churches to be built. Egypt only recognises conversions from Christianity to Islam, not the other way.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15235212

Six Christians shot, 1 fatally, in Egypt

By the CNN Wire Staff
January 12, 2011

Samalut, Egypt (CNN) -- A policeman fatally shot a Christian man and wounded five other Christians Tuesday in an attack on a train in Egypt, officials said.

The incident occurred at about 5 p.m. when a man walked onto the train, which was stopped in the station at Samalut, about 200 kilometers south of Cairo, said Maryanne Nabil Thaki, 29, one of the victims.

She said she was seated with her sister, Maggie Nabil Thaki, 25, their 52-year-old mother, Sabah Sinot Suleiman, and Maggie's fiance, 26-year-old Ehab Ashraf Kamal. They were en route to Cairo to buy an engagement ring, Maggie Thaki said.

Seated near them was an older Christian couple, Maryanne Nabil Thaki said.

The gunman walked up and down the length of the train, then walked back to two groups of people who were seated near each other and were both Coptic Christians, she told a reporter at the Good Shepherd Hospital in Samalut, where she was being treated for gunshot wounds to the leg and the chest.

The man said in Arabic, "There is no God but God," and opened fire, she said.

The shooter fled the train, but was captured later, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said. The suspect, a deputy policeman, was identified as Amer Ashoor Abdel-Zaher Hassan. He boarded the train in Asiut and was en route to Bani Mazar, Menya province, where he works.

The older man, Fathi Saeed Ebaid, 71, of Cairo, was killed, a local security source told the state-run Egyptian news agency MENA. His wife, Emily Hannah Tedly, 61, was in critical condition, as was the mother of the two younger women, said Dr. Petra Kamal.

All five were to be flown to Cairo for further treatment, a hospital employee said.

In front of the hospital, about a dozen Copts demonstrated in support of the victims but were dispersed by police who fired a tear gas canister that broke through a fifth-floor hospital window, said hospital employee Mina Farouk.

The attack comes 10 days after a bombing killed 23 Coptic Christians outside the Church of the Two Saints in Alexandria, Egypt, an attack that unnerved Christians and led to increased security.

Relations between the Christian minority and Muslim majority within Egypt have been tense since that New Year's Day bombing.

Those troubles were evident last Friday -- the day Coptic Christians, who follow the Julian calendar, celebrate Christmas -- when police staged a large-scale security operation outside the same church.

In a show of solidarity, some Egyptian Muslims attended the Christmas services.

Still, protests have erupted almost nightly in many Christian areas of Egypt since the bombing.

Egyptian authorities have released a sketch of a man they think was the suicide bomber in the church attack. The Interior Ministry used forensic technology to re-create the face.

About 9 percent of Egypt's 80 million residents are Coptic Christians. They base their theology on the teachings of the Apostle Mark, who introduced Christianity to Egypt, according to St. Takla Church in Alexandria, the capital of Coptic Christianity.

The religion is known for its rift with other Christians in the fifth century over the definition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

CNN's Ben Wedeman, Housam Ahmed and Amir Ahmed and Journalist Ian Lee contributed to this report.


http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/11/egypt.attack/index.html?iref=allsearch

Coptics Living in fear

This article appeared in the Whitehorse Leader on page 5 on Wednesday 12 of January, 2011