In Egypt streets, Islamists throw weight around
ICC Note:
Radical Islamists led by Salafis—who follow the radical Wahhabi doctrines of Islam found in Saudi Arabia—are increasingly discriminating against and outright attacking Christians in Egypt.
On November 5, for example, Salafis stormed a church in the Shubra district of Cairo and illegally “occupied” the land. And in late October a Christian concert was prevented from taking place because Salafis called it an evangelistic event. “Seemingly sporadic incidents are turning into what rights activists describe as an emerging pattern of abuses in the street by radicals… From the fatal stabbing of a young man who was out with his fiancée to the case of a conservative teacher who cut schoolgirls’ hair because it was uncovered, the examples are stacking up,” Reuters reports.
By Yasmine Saleh
11/7/2012 Egypt (Reuters)- Mohamed Talaat didn’t like the fact Christian music was being played at a party to promote interfaith harmony in the Egyptian town of Minya south of Cairo, so together with a group of like-minded Islamist hardliners, he showed up to put a stop to it.
It was simply un-Islamic to broadcast Christian songs, Talaat explained.
“Egypt is Islamic and so we all have to accept Islamic rules to halt any strife,” he said by telephone.
Four months since Egypt elected veteran Muslim Brotherhood politician Mohamed Mursi as president, human rights activists say hardliners are trying to impose Islamist ways on society.
Although reliable data on social trends is hard to find in Egypt, many people believe that cases of religious intimidation have increased.
“There is no doubt that the rate of strange and violent practices by strict Islamists has increased tremendously since the election of Mursi,” said Gamal Eid, founder of The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a human rights group.
“We have in a few months seen many more of such incidents than we have seen in years before Mursi,” he said.
Seemingly sporadic incidents are turning into what rights activists describe as an emerging pattern of abuses in the street by radicals, defying both the authority of the state and Mursi’s own promises to protect personal freedoms.
From the fatal stabbing of a young man who was out with his fiancée to the case of a conservative teacher who cut schoolgirls’ hair because it was uncovered, the examples are stacking up.
Such actions have grabbed local headlines and fuelled the worst-case-scenario fears of moderates worried by the rise of Islamists who were tightly reined in by Hosni Mubarak but have emerged as a major force since he was swept from power.
In Cairo, it seems little has changed. The capital is still a place where teenagers hold hands in public, Egyptian-brewed beer is sold and pleasure boats cruise the Nile blasting out the kind of pop music frowned upon by the hardliners.
And importantly for a tourism industry that employs one in eight Egyptians, it is business as usual at Red Sea beach resorts that are a major draw for Western tourists.
Yet, say activists, the hardliners are flexing their muscles more than before, particularly in some of the more far flung corners of a country of 83 million.
CHRISTIANS FEAR VIOLENCE
Egypt’s Christian minority, the Middle East’s largest, has lived with increasing fear of sectarian violence, which worsened in Mubarak’s final weeks and the early days of the interim military rule that followed his ouster in February 2011.
Weeks before Mubarak was ousted, 23 Coptic Christians were killed in the bombing of a church on New Year’s Day 2011. Five months later, with generals still in charge of the country, several churches in Cairo were torched and Christian houses and businesses destroyed. Fifteen people died and hundreds were wounded in the May 2011 religious unrest.
The period since Mursi took power has so far been spared violence on last year’s scale, but there have been flare-ups, such as in August when about 16 people were injured in attacks on a church in a village near Cairo.
Christians say overall the atmosphere has become increasingly menacing as the presence of hostile Salafi Muslim hardliners in public life has grown more pronounced.
“Extremists’ actions are worrying all Egyptians and not only Christians,” said Karim Goher, a Christian and one of the organisers of the halted interfaith celebration in Minya.
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