Attacks on Christians up in Egypt

ASEM, Egypt -- The Christian and Muslim villagers grew up together, played on the same soccer fields as kids, and attended the same schools in this riverside hamlet. But that didn't matter on a recent day: An argument between boys sparked clashes between neighbors, with Muslims torching shops owned by Christians.

Gamal Sobhy, a Christian farmer, ran into the melee to protect his two sons. Someone in the crowd hit him with a stick. Then others jumped in, striking him repeatedly until he fell to the ground with blood seeping from his head.

"The Muslims were yelling, 'Kill him, kill him,'" Sobhy said a few days after he was released from the hospital.

Five years ago, many among Egypt's minority Orthodox Coptic Christians thought the discrimination they had long faced from Muslims would begin to disappear when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in Egypt's revolution and the military seized control of the country.

But in the years since then, as an Islamist government was elected and overthrown, that sense of hope evaporated.

Attacks against Christians have intensified as mistrust between Christians and Muslims deepens. Today, community leaders and human rights activists say the smallest of matters are setting off violence, often pitting neighbor against neighbor.

At a time when President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi's government is jailing its opponents and struggling to revive a sinking economy, the violence adds a new layer of populist frustration: Christians strongly supported Sissi's rise, expecting him to protect them after the former army general led a coup that toppled the Islamists.

"As Egyptian citizens, Christians don't feel they are equal to their Muslim counterparts," said Bishop Makarios, the head of the Coptic diocese in Minya province, where Asem is situated. "They feel oppressed, and marginalized by the law."

Christians across the region have endured horrific assaults in the turbulent aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.

In Syria and Iraq, Islamic State militants have destroyed churches, abducted Christians and carried out forced conversions. Thousands of Christians have fled their homes in northern Iraq. In Libya last year, Islamic State militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians and an additional 31 Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians in two separate attacks. And earlier this year, the Islamic State's affiliate in Egypt asserted responsibility for the fatal shooting of a priest.

In Egypt, a "disturbing wave of radicalism" has emerged from the uprising and changes in government and as the economy has worsened, said Bishop Angaelos, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom.

Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the population of 94 million, have felt besieged for decades. In a nation where Islam is the state religion, successive secular but authoritarian regimes have restricted Christians from practicing their beliefs, even though freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution.

But since January 2011, 77 sectarian attacks have taken place in Minya alone, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an activist group.

Nearly half of those attacks occurred in the past three years, after Egypt's elected Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in the military coup led by Sissi in 2013. In the days that followed, mobs of hard-line Muslims targeted Christian schools, businesses and churches in a wave of attacks. Many Islamists accused Christians of conspiring with Sissi against them. Since then, tensions have been raw.

At least 25 sectarian attacks have been reported around the nation this year, activists say.

"When an individual is acquitted after an attack, the community knows they can get away with attacking Christians," Makarios said.

Before the revolution, Christians were targeted mostly by militant groups and thieves. "Now the violence has a societal element to it, with Muslim and Christian citizens turning against each other," said Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher at EIPR.

In Asem, the trigger was a minor dispute.

It was the early days of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in mid-September. One of Sobhy's sons was returning from the fields when he was stopped by Muslim youths who had blocked the road. The boys exchanged insults, and soon the fight erupted, drawing in Sobhy's other son as well as dozens of villagers from their homes.

Security forces arrived, and 20 Muslims and 17 Christians were arrested.

"The Muslims did a lot of things that shouldn't have happened," said Othman Al Montaser Othman, a member of parliament from Minya who is Muslim. "They vandalized a barbershop, a furniture shop. Even if you had a fight with one person, you shouldn't have taken it out on everyone else."

Othman and other Muslim leaders blamed Muslims for the attacks but also say they weren't sectarian. Othman instructed a Muslim community leader to say the attack was not motivated by religion, a conversation heard by two Washington Post reporters seated in the room during the call.

Two hours later, the community leader, Anwar Osman, said: "It was not sectarian. It was a childish prank." The Christians were just trying to get the public to "sympathize with them," he said.

Local officials and lawmakers insist that life is back to normal. "We all now talk to each other and visit each other," Osman said. "Reconciliation has already happened."

But Christians say that is not true.

"They claim that things are back to normal and we reconciled, just to make the public feel they have ended the crisis," said Ishak Sobhy, Gamal Sobhy's brother. "We expected life to be better under Sissi for our community. But it's actually getting worse."

Some Christians said they no longer walk in the village at night because they are afraid of being attacked. Others no longer trade in livestock, fearing they could be targeted in the fields.

But Ishak Sobhy said his family refuses to drop the case. Gamal Sobhy is still visiting doctors and recently learned that he has a detached retina. The Muslim man accused of instigating the clashes turned himself in but is out on bail, authorities said.

"Life goes on," Ishak Sobhy said. "But we remain worried."

Heba Mahfouz contributed to this report.

Religion on 11/26/2016

Upcoming Events