Violence targets Copts

CAIRO – Egypt’s Coptic Christians have long felt like second-class citizens in their own country.

Now many fear that the power vacuum left after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak is giving Muslim extremists free rein to torch churches and attack Coptic homes in the worst violence against the community in decades.

An assault Sunday night on Christians protesting over a church attack set off riots that drew in Muslims, Christians and the police. Among the 26 people left killed in the melee, most were Copts. For Coptic scholar Wassem el-Sissi, it was evidence that the Christian community in Egypt is vulnerable as never before.

“In the absence of law, you can understand how demolishing a church goes unpunished,” he said. “I have not heard of anyone who got arrested or prosecuted.”

Once a majority in Egypt, Copts now make up about 10 percent of the country’s 85 million people. They are the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Their history dates to 19 centuries ago and the language used in their liturgy can be traced to the speech of Egypt’s pharaohs. Proud of their history and faith, many Copts are identifiable by tattoos of crosses or Jesus Christ on their right wrists, and Coptic women do not wear the veil as the vast majority of Muslim women in Egypt do.

Under Mubarak, the problems of Copts festered even if they faced less violence than they do now. Their demands for a law to regulate construction of churches went unanswered, and attacks on churches went unpunished.

Copts shared in the euphoria of the 18-day revolution that ousted Mubarak, and like so many other Egyptians, their hopes for change were high. Mainly, they wanted to be on equal footing with Muslims.

At Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution against Mubarak, there were glimpses of a fleeting utopia where coexistence and mutual respect between Muslims and Christians was the rule.

But shortly after Mubarak’s ouster, a series of assaults on Christians brought home a stark reality: The fading of authoritarian rule empowered Islamist fundamentalists, known here as Salafis, who have special resentment for Christians.

While the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood has long been Egypt’s best-organized opposition movement, the Salafis are a new player in politics. They are ultraconservatives and seek to emulate the austerity of Islam’s early days and oppose a wide range of practices they view as “un-Islamic.”

The Salafis persistently accuse the Copts of trying to spread Christianity in a Muslim nation, echoing Wahhabism’s deep distrust and hostility of other religions.

Mubarak’s regime tolerated the Salafis, and they expanded in numbers and power over the years. However, after Mubarak’s overthrow, they enjoyed more freedom than ever before to go after their No. 1 target: Christians.

Now rarely a month passes without a sectarian incident.

On Feb. 23, less than two weeks after Mubarak’s ouster, a priest was found dead with several stab wounds and witnesses say masked men shouting “Allahu-Akbar” (God is Great) were seen leaving his apartment.

Not long after in March, a Muslim-Christian love affair led a Muslim mob to torch a church in Soul village to the south of Cairo and set it on fire. When Christians held a protest denouncing the attack on the church, they were attacked by a Muslim mob wielding guns, knives and clubs. When it was over, 13 were dead and 140 injured.

In May, Islamic ultraconservatives burned a church in the working-class district of Imbaba in Cairo and clashed with Christians, leaving 12 dead.

Then a few months passed with no attacks, until Sunday night, now known as the “bloody Sunday.”