THE COPTIC CHRISTIANS OF EGYPT TODAY: UNDER THREAT OF ANNIHILATION

Click Here to read the truth about how the Musilims want to do a "Final Solution" on the Christians in Egypt!


By BAHEG T. BISTAWROS

"This study finds that Coptic Christians are subjected to daily persecutions. Someof the persecutions include confiscation of property, discrimination and bigotry, the imposing of Islamic laws against them to further enslave them, murders in broad daylightwith impunity, extortion, the siege of some towns, the bombing and burning down of churches, and ill treatment on a daily basis. Copts are considered to be second class citizens and have been deprived of their God-given inalienable rights. The West has been blind in the face of such persecution. Egypt has been able to elude world condemnation despite the grave situation of twelve million Coptic Christians in thatcountry.
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ix I INTRODUCTIONThe West regards Egypt as a moderate country, which is true regarding its foreign policy. The West, especially the United States, seems to ignore human rights violations in that country. The annual report of the U.S. Department of State on human rights is very mild in language concerning the severe human rights violations against Coptic Christians in Egypt.1The Department of State's annual report does not represent the truth 1Notice that I have used both the word Christian and Copts. Both are synonymous, and mean the same thing in Egypt.
When writing about the Copts, in fact, I am writing about Christians and vice versa. In defining the word Coptic, Gerard in his book What is the Christian Orient said:Coptic is the last stage in the evolution of the language of the pharaohs which was deeplyinfluenced by Greek. Coptic, here, is understood to be Egyptian. It is made up, principally, of two dialects which are Sahidic in northern [sic, southern] Egypt and Boharic in the Delta. Outside of the Greek cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, Hellenismhad spread only superficially in Egypt where the mass of fellaheen [ordinary Egyptians]knew little or no Greek. As soon as Christianity was established in the country, translations of the Sacred Scriptures into Coptic began to appear. See Gerard Guertin, What is the Christian Orient (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1967), 64.
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in that country.2The Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on human rights and the U.S. foreign policy, after extensive hearings reported the following: 2In comparing the annual reports of the U.S. Department of State for 1986, 1987, and 1993, with the various documents published by Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity International, and other human rights groups, one comes to the conclusion that the U.S. Department of State reports do not represent the true condition of the Christian minority of Egypt and the violations of their human rights by the Egyptian government. The human rights factor is not accorded the high priority it deserves in our country's foreign policy. . . . The State Department has taken the position that human rights are a domestic matter. . . . When charges of serious violations of human rights occur, the most that the Department is likely todo is make private inquiries. The prevailing attitude has led the United States into embracing governments which practice torture and unabashedly violate every human rights guarantee pronounced by the world community. Through foreign aid and occasional intervention both overt and covert--the United States supports these governments
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Protest Egyptian government allowing criminal attacks on Coptic Christians

By CFP

Coptic Christians and their supporters will demonstrate on Parliament Hill at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 5, 2008 against the Egyptian government for continuing to allow criminal elements to wage regular attacks on Egyptian Copts and their properties.

Buses carrying demonstrators from Montreal and Toronto will join with Ottawa Copts for the peaceful demonstration organized by the Canadian Coptic Association. From Parliament Hill, the demonstrators will march at 2:00 p.m. to the Egyptian Embassy at 454 Laurier Avenue East to continue their protest.

Copts all over the world are outraged by the recent barbaric machine-gun attack on the monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt. Some monks were kidnapped, asked to confess Islam and insult the Cross, and were brutally tortured. They were released 12 hours later with broken bones and other injuries; later the monks were refused treatment in the government hospital. The damage to the monastery and its church was estimated at 1 million pounds.

Six other incidents occurred in a two-week period, from killing four Copts in a jeweler’s shop in Cairo by shooting from a passing motorcycle, to robbing another jeweler’s shop owned by a Copt in Alexandria at knife point.

In a mysterious car accident with a bus carrying 30 Copts in Beni-Sweif, 12 young people were killed. The monastery of Archangel Michael in Dar El-Salam, Suhag was set on fire. Christian homes and businesses were attacked in Fayoum, and St. Mary’s ancient church in Sakha, Kafr El-Sheikh was torched.

The Coptic Christian church is the world’s oldest church, founded by St Mark, who wrote the Gospel of Mark, between A.D, 42 and A.D 62. Based in Alexandria, the church has an estimated 15 million members around the world, including 50 thousands in Canada.

Canadian Coptic Association in Ottawa
Nabih N. Abdelmalek, Tel: (613)277-4515
Media relation: Sherif Mansour, Tel: (613) 747-4568