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Copts and Their
Right to Self Determination, and Ruling
Genocidal Persecution of Egyptian Copts Must Be Stopped
By Rafique Iscandar,
President, ACU
Bad—very
bad
news seems to dog Coptic Christians in present-day Egypt. It seems to be
a trend.
Massacres, murders, and other deplorable acts perpetrated by
Islamic fanatics, and government against peaceful Coptic citizens have
been the order of the day for too long. Alarmingly, Egypt’s Copts and
other Christians seem to be the exclusive target of these singular acts
of violence and religious, racial intolerance.
The current situation
is reliably described in international reports as the worst that it has
been since the situation has been monitored.
As in those ancient
times of El Hakeem B’Allah, who raised the Holy Church of Jerusalem,
down to modern times, when Islamic dictator, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Sadat,
and Mubarak presided over modern-day Egypt.
The mode is the same
as in the far-gone, brutal past. Cities and villages are burnt.
Innocents are unceremoniously slain. Property is destroyed and leveled.
The sine qua non of macho despoliation, Young girls, their mothers, and
grandmothers are being raped.
Supportive documentation include the following data:
Item 1: February 1996. St. Demiana.
In a well-planned, coordinated campaign, a fundamentalist Muslim
guard employed to protect a Coptic house of worship in a peaceful,
sleepy village, instead led a barbaric attack against the ancient
monastery of St. Demiana the guard was to have protected. The attack was
waged against unarmed, peaceful villagers. The murderers set fire to the
entire village, wrecking the town.
Torturing the young
and raping the women. Over 5,000 people fled the area, never to return
to the land that their ancestors had owned and settled for millenniums.
Reason given by the
authorities in the media for the pillage: “ To build a new dwelling”
No details. What type of dwelling? Why this site?
What reason did the
entire village have to be put to the torture? No answers were ever
forthcoming. Nor were any restitutions made.
Item 2: April 1996. Burning of St. Abraham’s monastery.
Churches and monasteries have become an especially favored locus of
depredation.
Within the same time
frame, as St. Abraham’s destruction, fanatics also set fire to another
monastery in El-Fayoum, an irreplaceable treasure of an edifice.
Neither monastery
exists any longer, either as a religious site or a tourist center,
courtesy of vicious, baseless terrorism.
Item 3: The number of massacres committed against
Christians include that at Tima; the Virgin Mary monastery in the
village of El-Minia; the El-Nekhela, and a number of other villages in
Abu-Korkas, St. Demiana, El-Mansoura, and El-Sharkia.
Of myraids of
documented, personal crimes committed, we cite three:
Item 4: In the town of Assiout, Upper Egypt, a young
girl’s skin was smeared with acid in order to “erase” a small
tattoo of a cross
Item 5: In another incident in that same town, a Coptic
woman brought her feverish child to Hospital University for emergency
care. Leaving the child completely unattended and unmedicated for hours,
the extremist physicians, Muslims, were not perturbed to find that the
infant had passed away.
Item 6: Elsewhere, Hospital University of Assiout, a
doctor informed one woman that her child required immediate surgery to
break a coma in which the child was enveloped. Though the child was
taken to the operating room for treatment, nothing was done. Instead,
the body of the child was discovered, dead, in an elevator duct.
Item 7: March 1997, a vicious attack, on Saint Mary Church of Abu Korkass during prayers,
Islamic terrorist killed 13 Coptic Christian students. The Church
was guarded by Military armored vehicle that never interfered to stop
the massacre, or even try to arrest the perpetrators.
Item 8:
May 1997, Barbarian Islamic terrorists waged a local war while
Christians celebrating a religious occasion in Gabal Al-Taire, Samalot
Monastery, and Village. The massacre yielded seven Christian casualties,
tens of Copts wounded, and more than 500 hundreds homes destroyed by
fires.
Item 9: 1998, during this year, Arab-Moslem terrorists,
and government spread their terror campaign all over Christian
population in the Upper Egypt region. Tens of Coptic Christians have
killed and injured, Business destroyed and burnt. (See the enclosed
reports).
Item 10: June 1999, a senior foreign correspondent in Cairo, Dr. Kees Hulsman, held a press
conference at New York City Council of Churches, NYCCC, regarding the
Islamic terror campaign against Coptic Christian women in Egypt. Dr.
Hulsman was answering the critics published in Washington Post Ad on
behalf of the Islamic government of Egypt. On his report, he mentioned
that the number of Coptic Christian girls kidnapped, rapped, and force
converted is approximately between 15,000 to 20,000 every year, on the
last 20 years.
Item 11: January 2000, The government Moslem Militias had committed a huge massacre against the
Coptic Christians in Souhag, Al Kosheh. More than 20 killed, hundreds
wounded, and destroyed 2 Churches.
Consequences: Wholesale Conversions
More than 25,000 Christians were slain in the past 20 years.
Official Islamic figures, it is important to realize shows less than 5%
of this number of dead.
While
few Egyptian Christian Copts wished to immigrate before 1967 because of
the Arab-Israeli War. Observers noted the swelling ranks of Copts
migrating elsewhere in large numbers. Over 3 million Egyptian citizens
with a Coptic background now live in Europe, Australia, Canada, and
primarily the United States.
From Upper Egypt, almost 1.5 million Copts fled their
homeland. Others sought out for safe haven elsewhere in the Middle East,
in contiguous Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf States, and regions in Africa.
In
what was once a calm and pluralistic Egypt, the brutal methods of
Islamic fundamentalists are ravaging the country. Millions of lives are
at stake, many—if not—most of these squandered lives belong to
Christian Coptic men, women, and children.
The goal of the
Islamic extremists goes beyond he eradication of dissenting voices from
what these extremists factions consider it “ their Muslim Holy
Land.” Any infraction of what the radicals deem their holy drive for
single-religion domination is met with economic deprivation, social
ostracism, isolation, administrative procrastination, physical torture,
beatings, and rape.
In the places cited,
as well as in dozens of smaller towns, documented evidence that exists
of Egyptian police assisting the extremists fanatics in a continuous
ethnic purging and a campaign of administrative harassment.
The forgoing blatant
acts against Christians must be stopped, as they belie ethnic pluralism
and are a ceaseless attack against Christianity.
Bolstered by the
support of the United States, and a smug in its sense that the U.S. will
seldom interfere in “ domestic issues” of other countries. The
Egyptian government rarely investigates such wrongdoing if it has
targeted non-Islamic minorities. With its Coptic entity, Egypt neither
nor discusses any reputed violence.
The Christian
community calls on President George W. Bush and the Congress of the
United States to set this situation to right. Our demand is that this
situation cease. Islamic religionists must desist from perpetrating this
violent, unacceptable situation.
Consequences: The Campaign to Islamize Egypt’s Christians Figures from the renowned Islamic University, Al-Azhar, indicate that 70,000 Christians had converted to Islam in 1991/1992. The Coptic Church news, however, puts that figure closer to only 35,000.
This disparity between
the two is a representation of the dipolar political opposition of the
two camps. Whichever figure is independently “ correct,” the
sad fact is that conservative estimates of those converting to Islam
over the past 20 years are in the vicinity of 2 million. The
bulk of these conversions are laid at the door of imposed restrictive
political isolation.
This is another way of
saying that when people realize that they cannot live, work, and pray in
an economic security unless it changes its ways, that people slowly, but
surely shift to the dominant force denying its freedom, simply secure
the benefits of peaceful entrepreneurship and citizenship.
In terms of political
process, the past 20 years have seen elected representation for Coptic
Christians. Even when the community had an elected official, he/she had
little to no demonstrable effect on the political process.
Window-dressing
representatives, indeed, gave the illusion of progress, until one looked
beneath the roiling waters and noted absolutely no ameliorativn of the
deplorable conditions of the Christians these candidates were elected to
help.
Social Consequences: Effect of Political Isolation
Socially, all Christian non-profits were served from the Coptic
mainstream, owing to unrelenting political, economic, and social
pressure that often took the form of terror tactics to intimidate and
persuade.
The incremental
imposition of financial rigors brought about repeated stress and
separation on the micro level. Families, on the other hand, while
squeezing and drying out resources for support, on the micro level.
Thus, the once-solid front of Egypt’s churches now stand in imminent
danger of falling into complete disarray.
Item 12: Patriarch Shenouda, titular/religious head of
Coptic Christian Nation, has not been able to visit a single church in
beset Upper Egypt within 25 years. In the same period, by contrast, he
has visited his American Coptic Christian community dozens of times.
Some other facts include: ·
The whole Coptic Church Hierarchy is infiltrated by Moslem government
agents, Deacons, Priests, Bishops, and even the office of Patriarch are
pointed and endorsed by SSI (State Security Investigation). ·
On June 2001, The Patriarch requested applying Islamic Laws on Christian
families, until the Parliament passes the 30 years old waiting Bill,
that legislate Christian Family Law. As a result of Patriarch’s
request, 6000 Christian families fall apart and mostly converted to
Islam, on Sept 2001, (Reported by Rose Al-Youcef Magazine, Sep. 2001). ·
Spreading heretics, such as, ignoring the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, and replaced by an Islamic term. Allowing Moslems prayers
inside Coptic Christian sanctuaries, and Churches. ·
Some clergies visit Saudi Arabia receiving funds and rewards to Islamize
Coptic Christians, a prize of $10,000 for each Christian convert to
Islam,{ names, places are available upon request}. ·
Allowing the government agents to control, deceive, and spread rumors of
all Coptic Communities in the US. These Churches in the US are used in
many occasions against the Coptic Christian Community in Egypt, and US.
Item 13: Unlike the haphazard or wartime weapon of “
terrorrape” as seen in warring countless of European and Christian
women, were endangered and threatened with deliberate, religious rape,
torture, and wholesale slaughter in Kiwissna, El-Mansoura, Belkass, and
elsewhere.
These planned
shame-rapes, designed to force the victims to marry Islamic husbands who
will save the victims from “ dishonor” and provide economic support,
massacres, and lightning-kill done with benign or active collusion of
national police. These actions had been waged against the 12 million
law-abiding Christian Copts in Egypt, women, young children, and infants
included.
Why do the Islamic
fanatics commit theses offensive acts and religious/social atrocities?
The perpetrators of these virtually countless crimes against Coptic
citizens of Egypt seek the systematic eradication of Christianity within
Egypt.
Cultural Destruction: Erasing the Coptic Identity
Eliminating and debasing the Coptic identity, in these ways and
others, has been a prime goal of the Islamists.
Item 14: In 1919, Sa’ad Zaghlol deluded Coptic leaders
with a nefarious and cunning slogan: The unity of a cross and a
crescent. Christian Copts were heartened, erroneously, with the thought
that harmony was possible between historically dissimilar camps. The
result? A precipitous decline in Copts at all government levels.
Item 15: Secondarily, the erroneous belief led to the
destruction of the most significant religious sites of the Copts in
Egypt. Sites that bore the freight of the pure, traditional culture of
the original Egyptian Coptic Christians.
Item 16: Additionally, imposition of Arabic, and Koran in all
schools exerted catastrophic pressure against Christian sensibility and
its educational systems.
Item 17: In order to carry out this plan with a veneer of
acceptability, the plan was to erect artificially scripted public works
such as bridges and other structures that would “ incidentally”
encompass the deconstruction and raising of valued archaeological and
religious sites. In 1995, for instance, the government began building a
bridge that would eradicate all non-Muslim monuments in Luxor(Thebes),
in addition to all the invaluable sites leading up to the city.
Consequences: Economic Dislocation
From
the advent of the Arab incursion into the region, the Muslims and other
rulers adopted a pattern of systematic destruction of non-Muslim
property. While the perpetrators utilize any means at their disposal to
achieve their goal, chiefly the time-dishonored method of terrorism and
blood-drenched murder, the result is vast economic instability as well
as loss of security. Investment necessarily disappears. Further
dislocation is afforded by decapitating Coptic Christian capitals.
Christian factories
have repeatedly been burnt in the 10th Ramadan, notably in
Cairo and El-Mahalla as well as smaller cite. The Koran does not endorse
terror burning.
Pressures resulting
from this wholesale vandalism and burning, force business owners to
declare bankruptcy. The cycle erodes the employment ability of the
community, dislocates families further, and eliminates the financial
base of the populace so they are less capable of resisting the violence,
campaigning for redress, or repairing destruction. Some of the business
leaders have been killed.
Economic hardship is a
classic tool of dislocation and ethnic evisceration. If one imagines,
however, that Coptic Christian economic power might have been trivial
prior to Islamic depredation, it is interesting to note the following
datum, from a book by Dr. Moustafa El Fiky, former Secretary of
Information to President Mubarak.
El Fiky noted that 57%
of Egyptian wealth was in the hands of Christians and Jews prior to
nationalization in 1961.
To this point, the
International Monetary Fund in its 1995 report stated that Egyptian
Muslims had more than $124 billion, which has been smuggled out of the
country. Intriguingly, this figure exceeds by five times the value of
the entire Egyptian fiscal budget.
The
magnitude of this implied theft of currency and services may be measured
against the per capita income of the average Egyptian. Recent world
figures put the median Egyptian income at $600 per annum.
Consequences: Insecurity
Security and freedom, it has been often said, are prime national
issues. Without them, society cannot go forward.
Neither exists in
present-day Egypt—or in the vast majority of the Middle East nations,
excepting only Israel. The wide scale result of disrespect for religious
expression, and the abrogation of respect for human life that is not
Muslim life is massive insecurity and rampant dislocation in the
populations of the Islamic countries of the region.
Both would be relieved
to some extent were fanaticism, religious persecution, and human rights
abuses to be corrected.
What must be done to avert looming disaster?
These
twin issues must forcefully be addressed by the congress and the Senate
in American foreign policy and by human rights organizations, to
ameliorate decades long abuses of every short, in both the
self-determination and religious spheres.
Partial redress can be
achieved by a decisive and determined effort on behalf of the
law-abiding Coptic Christians of Egypt, whose aim is to serve faithfully
as citizens, and to worship in their own tradition the Deity of their
faith, in their own churches, without interference or threat from the
spectrum of Muslims fanatics, in government office or beyond the sight
of accountable officials.
In the furtherance of
this goal for the Christians of Egypt and other, contiguous Islamic
nations, partial solutions must be rejected.
Nothing short of full
security must be implemented. The might of the United States, European
Union and the United Nations must be brought to bear. Autonomy, and
self-ruling is the only acceptable solution, in addition to a national
government combined both, Copts Christians, and Arab Moslems in a
federated form. Sharing power and wealth must be ensured as well.
Observers must be sent to witness first-hand the
extent of the abuses in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Failing immediate
intervention, an entire proud, productive nation the Coptic Christians
is consigned to painful and baseless extinction. The blood of these
millions of innocent and loyal people will be forever on the hands of
those who fail to offer the rescuing hand.
A word about the American Coptic Union:
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