Arbitrary Arrests Inflame Egypt ‘s Sectarian Tensions
ICC Note
“Almost every day I see tons of Islamic stuff handed out on the streets and the government does nothing, police do nothing. So now, all of a sudden, some Copts pass out some Bibles and they get arrested. It doesn’t seem fair to me,”
Written by Joseph Mayton
02/09/2009 Egypt (The Media Line)-The arrests and weeklong detention of two Coptic Christians at the Cairo International Book Fair on February 1 has reignited the seemingly endless tension that continues to grow between Christians and Muslims in Egypt .
State security officials arrested Mina ‘Adil Shawki and ‘Issam Kadees Nassif after they were seen handing out Bibles at the book fair. An Egyptian human rights center said police filed a report against the two men for “defaming Islam.”
The men, from the Upper Egyptian governorate Assiut, were released from detention on February 5, but their case has many activists in an uproar over the perceived double standards police employ against Christians as compared to their Muslim counterparts.
Nagib Gubreil, a Coptic lawyer and head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, told The Media Line that Shawki and Nassif were held on charges of preaching, but that this particular offense is not explicitly stated in the Egyptian Constitution.
Nuha, a Christian postgraduate student at Cairo University , calls the arrests outrageous, claiming a “double standard” that exists in the treatment of Christians as compared to Muslims.
“Almost every day I see tons of Islamic stuff handed out on the streets and the government does nothing, police do nothing. So now, all of a sudden, some Copts pass out some Bibles and they get arrested. It doesn’t seem fair to me,” she says.
The general prosecutor said that a decision to charge the men had “yet to be determined,” corroborating Gubreil’s details of what occurred. He said that police “had to accuse them of something” in order to hold them.
Preaching is a controversial topic on Egypt ’s streets. Copts complain of double standards that include allowing Muslims to get away with handing out religiously affiliated materials in the metro rail system, on buses and on the country’s streets.
“The state carries out arrests like this in order to keep its eye on Christian activists. Preaching and missionary work are considered serious security issues and the government is intent on maintaining control over them in order to avoid sectarian violence,” he adds.
In November, a group of Muslim demonstrators took to the street in front of a building bought and converted by Christians into a prayer hall. The building, a former factory that had been abandoned, lies almost directly across the street from a mosque, sparking anger among the Muslim residents.
According to reports, after the Christians and the Muslim protesters began to fight, rocks were thrown and two cars burned. Security forces arrested at least eight people in the fray.
Permission to open churches is controversial in Egypt , where by law the president must give the final say in the use of a particular space for religious purposes. Rights groups argue that because the president delegates authority in the matter to local officials, Copts have been forced to use illegal places for worship.
Activists argue that the majority of the responsibility for the ongoing violence and anger between Christians and Muslims falls on the government. They claim that arbitrary arrests for seemingly harmless acts such as those at the book fair only continue to heighten the already alarming sectarian tensions in the country.
