Christians Killed in Egypt Reflect Growing Hatred in Segments of Society

ICC Note: When a Christian teacher confronted a Muslim student , the situation ended up with the teacher shot to death by a brother of the student. This is just the latest in many events that show the deepening of the rift between some segments of Egyptian society. Egypt’s Christians have repeatedly been targeted by Islamists who view them as largely to blame for their political and social loses since protests in the summer of 2013.
04/12/2014 Egypt (Morning Star News) – A Coptic Christian teacher in Egypt allegedly shot by the teenage brother of one of his students has died, human rights activists said yesterday.
Ashraf Alahm Atef Hanna, an English teacher at Marzouk Prep School in the village of Marzouk in Minya Province, succumbed to injuries from the shooting on Tuesday (April 8). He was 35.
In what some activists said was a sign of both endemic disrespect toward educators and the vitriol of some segments of Egyptian society toward Christians, Hanna was shot in the head on April 1 by the 16-year-old Muslim brother of one of his students. According to human rights activists and local media sources, the teacher caught one of his students smoking in class. When the teacher told the boy to stop smoking, the Muslim student cursed at the teacher and insulted him in front of class.
The teacher responded by striking the student, allowed under school guidelines, and the boy stormed out of the class in anger.
The student later returned to the school with his family, which area residents said has ties to local Islamic extremist groups. The group chased the teacher through the school, and after catching him, they beat him and shot him once in the head. He was taken immediately to a hospital, where he lay near death for a week.
Authorities arrested at least four members of the family, including Mohamed Naser Mustafa, the one alleged to have shot Hanna.
Mina Thabet, spokesman and founding member of The Maspero Youth Union, said that the near constant din of anti-Christian vitriol from Islamists that creates and reinforces hate toward the Copts is to blame for the killing.
“They have an ideology about creating the ‘other,’” he said. “That’s the problem. They hate everyone different from them. The hate speech is responsible for the majority of sectarian violence and the majority of killings in Egypt.”
The most recent killing comes during a recent spate of seemingly random attacks against Copts in Egypt, including the shooting death of a 25-year-old Coptic woman, Mary Sameh George.
On March 28, in the Ain Shams section of Cairo, George was shot while on her way to take money to three people she knew from a ministry in which she was involved.
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