Egypt ranks No.
15 on the World Watch List of countries where it is most
difficult to live as a Christian.
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| Egyptian Entryway in Cairo by AnnaSerio (www.publicdomainpictures.net) |
Cairo, Nov. 11 (Open Doors News) — It was a quick skirmish and no one was hurt, but it was typical of what Egypt’s Coptic leaders say are increasing attempts to harass Christians since the country’s 2011 revolution.
The latest incident occurred Monday,
Nov. 5 in the Shoubra el
Kheima district of northern Cairo, where a Coptic
Orthodox Church service center is under construction.
Following the afternoon
Muslim prayers, a group of Salafi Muslims occupied the construction
site. They hung a sign: Masjed El Rahman, or “Mosque of the
Merciful.”
The Maspero Youth Union, a Copt
activist group, said on its Facebook
page that the intruders insisted the church
did not have the necessary permits to build. Government officials
later determined the church had all the required permissions in
place.
For about 24 hours, however, members of
the Coptic Church had to reckon with a group of Salafis who insisted
Christians had no right to the land. In the early-morning hours of
Tuesday, several members of the Maspero Youth Union made their way to
the building site and began asking questions of the occupiers.
“ ‘We have a small mosque at the
end of the street and the presence of a church here will offend us,’”
one of the Salafi occupiers said, according to one of the youth union
members.
“And this small mosque has a
license?” the Copt youth said he asked in reply.
“ ‘Do the houses of God need a
license?’” he quoted the Muslim as saying.
“I was shocked by the answer,” the
Copt youth said.
Coptic Bishop Antonius Marcos, who
oversees that region of Cairo for the church, urged Christians to
avoid direct confrontation with the Salafis even as he lodged
complaints with the government officials.
“The church doesn’t intend or wish
to have any kind of confrontation with anybody. We are all brothers
living in a same country,” Bishop Marcos said.
According to Middle
East Concern, a Britain-based Christian human-rights association,
the church’s construction project has the support of the governor
for that region of Egypt.
The Salafi occupiers left the
construction site Tuesday.
The brief occupation of the
construction site occurred only one day after Copts selected their
new pope, Bishop Tawadros II, who will assume the throne on Nov. 18.
He succeeds Pope Shenouda III, who died in March. Copts make up more
than 10 million of Egypt’s 80 million people.
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