Will America Help the Persecuted Copts of Egypt ?
By Ray Nothstine
2/2/2010 Egypt (Action Institute) – The violent persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt is becoming harder for the free world to ignore. This is true thanks to thousands of Copts who recently expressed their decades of frustration and anguish in street protests across the globe. One moving example took place in West Los Angeles , Calif. , last month. With American flags in hand, over a thousand Copts peacefully demonstrated. One boy simply said, “It is very dangerous in Egypt that is why we need America to help us.”
The protests were in response to a January 6 shooting that left six young Copts dead in Upper Egypt . The victims were gunned down outside the steps of their church while leaving a Christmas Eve service.
The date and location of the shooting are significant. Previously the Egyptian government has described sectarian violence within the country as family or village disputes. The latest atrocity further proves what anyone willing to connect the dots already knew: Copts are specific targets.
Copts are not just terrorized with violence from growing Islamic extremism in Egypt ; they face religious and economic marginalization by the government as well. The zabaleen (garbage collectors) communities are Christians who live in squalor, sorting trash daily in what can only be described as heartbreaking and horrific conditions. They epitomize the people Jesus spoke about in John 15:20: “Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you.”
Christian girls face abduction, rape, and forced marriages with Muslim men. Law enforcement officials hardly respond to such cases, and when they do, they routinely dismiss the incidents as “domestic quarrels.”
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said, “For America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity. Abroad, America 's greatest source of strength has always been our ideals.” Interestingly, the United States may be in the best position to help the Copts. Egypt receives close to $2 billion annually in American aid, placing it high on the list of beneficiaries of American largesse. The United States has never leveraged that assistance for protection of Copts. American ambassadors too have largely ignored their plight.
