Tag: Coptic Christians

Jihad on Egypt’s Christian Children (Human Events Re-Blog)

By: Raymond Ibrahim – posted on Human Events
6/6/2013 03:27 PM

Attacks on Christian children, both boys and girls, are on the rise in Egypt.

Agape Essam Girgis Age 14
Agape Essam Girgis, Age 14

Last week, a six-year-old Coptic Christian boy named Cyril Yusuf Sa‘ad was abducted and held for ransom. After his family paid off the Muslim kidnapper, Ahmed Abdel Moneim Abdel-Salam, he still killed the child and threw his body in the sewer of his house. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed.”

Weeks earlier, ten-year-old Sameh George, an altar boy at the Coptic church of St. Abdul Masih (Servant of Christ) in Minya, Egypt, was kidnapped by “unknown persons” while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents and family reported that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he didn’t return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, saying that they had the Christian boy in their possession and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.

And about a month before this latter incident, yet another Coptic boy, twelve-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy’s family demanding an exorbitant amount of money to ransom the boy’s life.

While the immediate motive behind these kidnappings is money, another purpose appears to be to frighten Christian families from sending their children to church. Otherwise, why were both boys kidnapped right in front of their respective churches? Continue reading “Jihad on Egypt’s Christian Children (Human Events Re-Blog)” →

The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News

By  Published May 07, 2013 / FoxNews.com

Link to original: The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News.

May 4, 2013: Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt, leads the Easter Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
May 4, 2013: Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt, leads the Easter Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway.  Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other.

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.”  In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion:  Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain—the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.

Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away. Continue reading “The mass exodus of Christians from the Muslim world | Fox News” →

EGYPT – No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance (Re-Blog)

No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance

Egyptian President Morsi and his party only get specific on random religious decrees, not policy.

 / MAY 3 2013, 10:30 AM ET

Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and members of the Muslim Brotherhood chant pro-Morsi slogans while holding up a poster with a crossed out picture of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and Morsi during a rally in Cairo on December 14, 2012. (Amr Dalsh/Reuters)
Supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and members of the Muslim Brotherhood chant pro-Morsi slogans while holding up a poster with a crossed out picture of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and Morsi during a rally in Cairo on December 14, 2012. (Amr Dalsh/Reuters)

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s decision not to attend this coming Sunday’s Coptic Easter mass was entirely predictable. Morsi, after all, declined to attend Pope Tawadros II’s November investiture and, during his previous stint as chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, Morsi visited a church on Christmas but made a point of emphasizing that he exited before services started. Yet because Morsi’s decision comes on the heels of a Brotherhood fatwa prohibiting Muslims from wishing Christians a “Happy Easter,” Morsi’s coldness towards Christians reflects a central paradox of the Brotherhood’s Islamism: despite its longtime promise to “implement the sharia” upon achieving power, the Brotherhood only offers specific interpretations of Islamic legal principles when it needs to justify its most intolerant impulses.

The fatwa, authored by Brotherhood leader Abdel Rahman al-Barr, is noteworthy for its degree of analytical detail. In it, Barr quotes extensively from the Qur’an to argue that Muslims should only greet Christians on their holidays “so long as this greeting does not come at the expense of our [Islamic] religion.” In other words, Barr writes, Muslims cannot wish Christians a “Happy Easter,” because “our belief as Muslims, which makes ambiguity impossible, is that [Jesus] wasn’t killed or crucified,” though Muslims can greet Christians on Easter with the non-sectarian Arabic salutation ” kulu sana wa-entum tayyibun,” which roughly means “hope you are well this year” and is used for all sorts of occasions, including birthdays. By contrast, he adds, wishing Christians a “Merry Christmas” is permissible, because Muslims view Jesus as a human prophet and thus acknowledge his birth. Continue reading “EGYPT – No ‘Happy Easter’: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Bizarre Religious Intolerance (Re-Blog)” →

Egyptian Muslims murdering Christians with impunity – International – Catholic Online

Egyptian Muslims murdering Christians with impunity

Ten people are dead following clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt. The people have been killed over the past few weeks which have seen spates of violence between Christians defending their churches and homes from angry Muslims. Few Muslim attackers ever face justice.

Click here for video link.

CAIRO, EGYPT (Catholic Online) – Clashes between Muslims and Christians have claimed 10 live in Egypt where sectarian violence between the groups has been renewed in the face of Mohammed Morsi’s administration.

Copts in the USA protest the violence their families face in Egypt.
Copts in the USA protest the violence their families face in Egypt.

The most recent spate of violence started after children drew crosses on the walls of an Islamic institute in Khosoos, just north of Cairo. That acts of children’s vandalism sparked a bloody retaliation from Muslims in which four Christians and a Muslim were killed.

At the Christian funeral, Muslims struck again, this time carrying on until they reached the Coptic cathedral and damaged the structure. More Christians were murdered.

Note that it’s Muslims who are attacking Christian funeral processions, not the other way around.

Vandalism committed by children, particularly of a religious nature is unacceptable, however the punishment should not include murder. Nor should Muslims carry on the violence to the funerals of the people they murdered.

Pope Tawadros II, leader of Egypt’s Coptic Christians, has openly criticized President Morsi for his failure to stem the violence despite pledges to do so. The Muslim attackers are yet to face any repercussions for their violence.

Copts make up 10 percent of Egypt’s population and have resided there since ancient times, even in the centuries before Mohammed. Continue reading “Egyptian Muslims murdering Christians with impunity – International – Catholic Online” →

Egypt update: Funeral Attacked at Egypt’s Biggest Church as Religious Violence Kills Six Copts (Christianity Today)

Peanut Gallery: Please click on the links scattered throughout this article. They will give you a quick overview of what’s taking place in Egypt today.
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Funeral Attacked at Egypt’s Biggest Church as Religious Violence Kills Six Copts

(UPDATED) President Morsi to Pope Tawadros: ‘I consider any aggression against the cathedral an aggression against me personally.’
Melissa Steffan

Update (April 8): CT’s Cairo correspondent offers a thorough roundup at Arab West Report.

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An injured man was helped outside the main Coptic Christian Cathedral in Cairo on Sunday. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's population.
An injured man was helped outside the main Coptic Christian Cathedral in Cairo on Sunday. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population.

A riot during a funeral for four Coptic Christians has ignited sectarian tensions in Cairo once again. A clash that killed four Christians in a northern suburb simmered over into the funeral at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the capital city, killing two people and injuring at least 90.

The weekend, which left six people dead in three days, marks the worst violence against Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, since the election of President Mohamed Morsi late last year.

The Associated Press reports that “the clashes at the St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral began just after hundreds of angry Christians left the complex to stage an anti-government march following the funeral for the four Christians killed in sectarian clashes Saturday.”

A Coptic Christian hurt in attack on mourners Sunday. (Morning Star News photo)
A Coptic Christian hurt in attack on mourners Sunday. (Morning Star News photo)

The scores of Muslim rioters who attacked funeral goers “[pelted] the mourners with stones … flash-bang grenades, tear gas, fire bombs, and other improvised weapons [and] set cars ablaze,” according to Morning Star News.

Following the fighting at St. Mark’s, Morsi condemned the attacks and ordered an investigation of the violence, promising protection for both Muslims and Christians.

CT previously has reported on Egypt and violence against Coptic Christians there, including a dispatch from Cairo on how Egyptian Christians were feeling on the first anniversary of their nation’s revolution. Egypt’s Copts are facing the future under an Islamist regime, including a hastily completed constitution that limits some previously guaranteed personal freedoms. Most recently, CT reported on the possible rise of Coptic evangelism in Libya and Sudan.

In addition, CT reported on the death of Pope Shenouda, the former leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, and also on the election of Pope Tawadros last year.

posted by Melissa Steffan