ICC Note: A mid East policy expert has accused President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi of turning a blind eye to the suffering Coptic community in Egypt. Following a recent upturn in Muslim-Christian violence in the country. The visiting fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy has expressed the need for el-Sissi to recognize and do something about the suffering Christians in his country. Despite the 2014 Constitution giving Egyptians full freedom of religion, people still suffer greatly for being a minority religion in the Islamic country.

06/24/2016 Egypt (Christian Today):The status of Coptic Christians in Egypt remains in a dismal state, and President Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi has been accused of turning a blind eye towards the suffering in the ongoing Muslim-Christian tensions.

Sarah Yerkes, a visiting fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy and a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellow, writes in an article for Brookings that Christians are being discriminated against in Egypt.

There is little Christian representation in the Egyptian government and because of this, there are continuous difficulties for the country’s Christian community.

“On paper, Egyptians enjoy ‘absolute’ freedom of religion guaranteed by the 2014 constitution. But, the constitution also decrees Islam to be the state religion, and conversion to any religion other than Islam is prohibited,” she says.

“Blasphemy is also punishable with harsh penalties and several high-profile blasphemy cases have been prosecuted under the Sissi government.”

Just last month, 70-year-old Christian woman was beaten and dragged through the streets of Minya naked by an angry crowd because her son was suspected of having an affair with a Muslim woman.

“The Minya event has once again demonstrated the relative impunity of the Egyptian police, who failed to respond to earlier warnings of a violent, religiously-motivated attack and took hours to appear on the scene,” she says.

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