ICC Note: The bishop who oversees the diocese of Minya, is calling on the Egyptian government to step up its policy of ending discrimination against Christians in Egypt. Sectarian violence has been steadily growing in the North African country as Muslim perpetrators continue to enjoy total impunity for their crimes against Christians and Christian property. Bishop Makarius has been specifically speaking out against “reconciliatory meetings” in which Christians are pressured into accepting unfair judgements outside the court system.

07/15/2016 Egypt (WWM): An Egyptian bishop has called for an end to discrimination against the country’s Christians, urging the government to do more to control the situation in villages across the country.

“We have to recognise everyone in Egypt as citizens of equal rights and obligations,” said Bishop Makarius in an Arabic interview to Christian website Copts United on 7 July.

The bishop’s statements, translated to English by World Watch Monitor, indicate the church is unhappy that attacks continue without legal redress.

Six weeks ago, Bishop Makarius won the praise of many Copts by standing out against extrajudicial “conciliation sessions”, whose judgments Christians often are pressured into accepting, to settle claims outside courts.

Describing discrimination as a “disease” afflicting his country, Makarius said “marginalising Copts incapacitates part of the Egyptian body”.

Marginalising Copts incapacitates the Egyptian body.

Since May, Copts have suffered at least two mob attacks. On 20 May, a Coptic grandmother was stripped naked and Christian homes were attacked after a rumoured affair between a Christian and a Muslim. On 17 June, reports of another Christian turning his home into a church prompted thousands of angry Muslims to go on the offensive in a village off Alexandria.

The May attack, as well one on 29 June, took place in Makarius’s diocese of Minya, whose main city lies 250 kilometres south of Cairo. Elsewhere, a Coptic priest was killed in Sinai on 30 June. The attack was claimed by the so-called “Islamic State”, which termed the Christian minister “an infidel fighter”. In other parts of the country, a priest’s daughter survived being stabbed in the neck on 2 July; a nun died of a “stray” bullet on the Cairo-Alexandria motorway on 5 July; and a fire broke out in a Christian kindergarten on 9 July.

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