Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Christians, Copts

Can someone please explain to me why Christian and Coptic churches/businesses are being destroyed in response to the army's crackdown on pro Morsi demomstrators?   What do the two have to do with each other?  Why are Christians and Copts being punished? 

I do not understand the political climate in Egypt, which is why i'm honestly asking this question.

This is a link to a study carried out by 'UN Women' on 'Ways and Methods to Eliminate Sexual Harrasment in Egypt'.  Sexual harrasment and attacks have become a major problem in the past few years. 

http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Sexual-Harassment-Study-Egypt-Final-EN.pdf


(The link is a PDF, by the way)

In Pictures: Savage Islamic Attack on St. Mark Cathedral Allowed by Egyptian Forces

By Raymond Ibrahim on April 9, 2013 in From The Arab World, Islam, Muslim Persecution of Christians

Egypt’s Coptic Christians frequently accuse State Security and police of overlooking Muslim attacks on Christians and their places of worship, especially monasteries and churches.  The Western mainstream media often ignores these accusations, or mentions them in passing as “unsubstantiated reports.” Last weekend’s assault on the St. Mark Cathedral — unprecedented in significance — was no different, except for the fact that there are many pictures demonstrating State complicity.

To recap: After last Sunday’s St. Mark Cathedral funeral service for Egypt’s most recent Christian victims of jihad — including one man set aflame — gangs of Muslims attacked the Christian mourners, resulting in the deaths of two more Copts, including one shot through the heart.   Hundreds of Christians retreated back into the cathedral — both to get out of harm’s way, and to protect their holiest site.  They were trapped there all night, enduring projectile and firebomb attacks.   State Security also opened fire on the cathedral, including through tear-gas.

Several Egyptian media outlets and newspapers, especially the popular Youm7,  have published a variety of pictures showing mobs, if not terrorists, attacking the cathedral in front of absolutely indifferent, possibly approving, security forces.  Some of these pictures, with my captions, follow:

Muslim”youth” climb to the roof of a building adjacent to St. Mark Cathedral to attack it. To the left, a man winds to hurl a projectile at it. And in the white circle to the right, high-ranking Egyptian officials and security stand by watching (easily recognizable by their hats and helmets).

A better close up. This image shows a masked sniper with rifle in hand preparing to open fire at the cathedral — confident that security forces will not intervene.

Same man opens fire.

Another man prepares to hurl stones at the cathedral, even as security forces stand by watching.

A masked man, with a rifle, sits inside an Egyptian armored vehicle — bought with U.S. taxpayer money — and fires at the cathedral.

More snipers attacking Copts and their cathedral.

Yet another picture showing rioting Muslims throwing projectiles (upper left-hand corner) at the cathedral.  A man with a pole (in yellow circle) dismantles or destroys something — a cross, or something else of Christian significance? — and Egyptian “security” (lower left-hand corner, in red circle), idly stand by.

St. Mark Cathedral, holiest site for Egypt’s indigenous Christians — and home of the Coptic pope — now turned into a war zone,  under Muslim Brotherhood leadership.

A Muslim burns a Bible in front of the cathedral, right under  security’s nose. In Egypt, if a Christian is merely accused of “desecrating” a Koran, he/she gets several years in prison. Yet here is a Muslim burning a Bible, with photo evidence, but he has nothing to fear.

A collage of some of those on rooftops firing at the cathedral. Most of them are known by name — including the second one in the Palestinian scarf — and Copts regularly report them to police and security, to no avail.

More rooftop terrorism against the cathedral.

The aftermath: the entrance of Coptic Christianity’s holiest site, the St. Mark Cathedral, after Egypt’s Muslim mob and State Security were through with it.

Finally, lest there be any doubts as to the Islamic nature of this attack, here is a video of Muslims chanting “Allahu Akbar!” in front of the cathedral as smoke rises from it:

Sexually harassing women who are protesting against sexual harrasment

Women brave attack to protest sexual harassment in Egypt

Mohamed Muslemany

Banker Marwa Salah protests against sexual harassament in Tahrir Square, Cairo, on Friday.

By NBC's Charlene Gubash

A handful of women saw the ugly side of Tahrir Square Friday when they were attacked and sexually harassed soon after they held a small demonstration protesting against just that.

Sexual harassment has plagued recent Tahrir Square rallies and peaked Tuesday when a woman molested by hundreds of men fainted and fell to the ground in front of a female Associated Press journalist who had to be carried away to safety herself.

Journalist Nadia Abul Magd attended the Friday demonstration as 15 women and a few men on a corner of Tahrir Square quietly held signs decrying harassment. She said that just as the protest moved to an adjoining street, waves of men fell upon the protesters, hurling broken glass and rocks at demonstrators and harassing some of the women.  Other men in the crowd tried in vain to protect them.

 

“We were surrounded by men from both sides and by [the time we reached the corner] I saw a wave. I saw so many that attacked some men and women,” said Abul Magd. “Every few minutes there was a wave. It was definitely a coordinated attack.”
She said the attackers intended to scare all women from the square and ruin the image of thousands of other legitimate protesters demonstrating against the candidacy of the former Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq.  
When we had dropped in hours earlier, a few men had already started arguing with women protesters.
“What are they demonstrating against?  Harassment! How can you distract like this from the public interest, which is getting rid of Shafiq!” shouted an angry young man. He gestured toward the throng of thousands filling Tahrir Square and oblivious to the smattering of women holding signs. “There are 500,000 people out there. This is not the time.”

Mohamed Muslemany

Lubna Ezzat, an engineer, protests against sexual harassment in Tahrir Square, Cairo, on Friday.

Two other men crowded against the short line of female protesters and held up their own anti -Shafiq fliers while venting fury at the women for staging a separate protest against sexual harassment. 
The women explained why they took the risk to protest for the right to walk the streets unmolested.
“You know when you leave home it will happen, either touching or bad language. Every day [harassment] happens here on the streets.  Some days it’s escalated,” said May Abdul Hafiz, a travel agency supervisor. She explained that women are considered at fault for encouraging unwanted male attention by dress or behavior. “You are not supposed to say anything because they think you brought it on yourself.”
Yasmin, a 28-year-old filmmaker who gave only her first name, called harassment a “disease.”
“It doesn’t matter what I wear or what age they are, old, young, no reason. We want to change this situation. … We want to criminalize harassment,” Yasmin said.

Mohamed Muslemany

May Abdul Hafiz, supervisor of a Cairo travel agency, demonstrates against sexual harassment at Tahrir Square, Cairo, on Friday.

Marwa Salah, a banker, said women’s rights will come with civil rights.
“When you have freedom you will have your rights. It’s about freedom for all Egyptians,” said Salah. “We have been brainwashed for 60 years. All people were so busy fighting poverty, women’s rights were a low priority.”

 

Abul Magd said the march Friday was targeted by men who wanted to prove they could sexually harass even those who dare protest against sexual harassment in order to prove that Tahrir Square is no longer safe for women or for those who try to protect them.

But the women had the last word. Friday night some of the assaulted protesters were invited to appear on a popular Egyptian talk show where they shared their concerns about sexual harassment in front of a nationwide audience.

i'm not normally political but.....

You know, I normally like to completely avoid talking about politics, but I just feel like this is a stupid situation of Muslims bullying Christians and both groups are to blame, but I'd say the instigators (seeming to be Muslim) are MORE to blame.  I'm going to highlight important phrases throughout the article.  

Church burning deepens tumult of Egypt transition

Published May 08, 2011

| Associated Press

CAIRO –  Relations between Egypt's Muslims and Christians degenerated to a new low Sunday after riots overnight left 12 people dead and a church burned, adding to the disorder of the country's post-revolution transition to democracy.

The attack on the church was the latest sign of assertiveness by an extreme, ultraconservative movement of Muslims known as Salafis, whose increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers.

Salafis have been blamed for other recent attacks on Christians and others they don't approve of. In one attack, a Christian man had an ear cut off for renting an apartment to a Muslim woman suspected of involvement in prostitution.

The latest violence, which erupted in fresh clashes Sunday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones in another part of Cairo, also pointed to what many see as reluctance of the armed forces council to act. The council took temporary control of the country after President Hosni Mubarak was deposed on Feb. 11.

After the overnight clashes in the slum of Imbaba, residents turned their anger toward the military. Some said they and the police did almost nothing to intervene in the five-hour frenzy of violence.

Analysts warned of signs of Coptic violence, especially with reports that some Christians have opened fire at Muslims.

"The Coptic volcano is exploding," Coptic expert Youssef Sedhom said. "How would Copts respond if they find their back to the wall facing guns? They would have no option but self defense," adding, "don't blame Copts for what they do."

Six Muslims were among the dead, according to Egypt's state-run news agency. 

 (How may Christians?  Or do only Muslims matter?)

The bloodshed began Saturday around sundown when word spread around the neighborhood that a Christian woman who married a Muslim had been abducted and was being kept in the Virgin Mary Church against her will.

Islamic extremists declared the crowded district a state within a state in 1990s, calling it "the Islamic Republic of Imbaba," one of the country's hottest spots of Islamic militancy.

The report of the kidnapping, which was never confirmed by local religious figures, sent a large mob of Muslims toward the church. Christians created a human barricade around the building and clashes erupted. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops were firing into the crowd.

The two sides accused each other of firing first.

Crowds of hundreds of Muslims from the neighborhood lobbed firebombs at homes, shops and the church. Residents say Christians were hiding inside. Muslims chanted: "With our blood and soul, we defend you, Islam."

Rimon Girgis, a 24-year-old with a tattoo of a Coptic saint on his arm, was among the Christians who formed a human shield around the church.

"They were around 40 bearded men chanting slogans like 'There is no God but Allah.' After rallying Muslim residents, they opened fire," he said. "We Copts had to respond, so we hurled stones and pieces of broken marble."

Some of the wounded were carried to the nearby St. Menas Church, where floors were still stained with blood hours later.

"Every five minutes, an injured person was rushed into the church," said Father Arshedis. "We couldn't reach ambulances by phone. We called and no one answered. We tried to treat the injured. We used the girls' hair clips to extract the bullets."

"The army is responsible because they took no action," he said.

Later the same night, the Muslim crowd moved to a Christian-owned apartment building nearby and set it on fire. Piles of charred furniture, garbage and wood were mixed with remains of clothes, food and shoes. Shops on the ground floor of the buildings were destroyed.

Some soldiers and police did fire tear gas, but failed to clear the streets for hours.

By daybreak, the military had deployed armored vehicles and dozens of troop carriers to cordon off a main street leading to the area. They stopped traffic and turned away pedestrians. Men, women and children watching from balconies took photos with mobile phones and cheered the troops.

Across the Nile river, in downtown Cairo, clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon. Muslim youths attacked Coptic Christian protesters, said Christian activist Bishoy Tamri.

TV images showed both sides furiously throwing stones, including one Christian who held a large wooden cross in one hand while flinging rocks with the other.

Scores were injured, but an army unit securing the TV building did nothing to stop the violence, Tamri said.

Late Sunday thousands of Copts decided to camp out in front of the TV building overnight to press demands to bring the arsonists to justice and to make religious instigation a criminal offense.

Islamic clerics denounced the violence, sounding alarm bells at the escalating tension during the transitional period following Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster by a popular uprising.

"These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts," Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the sheik of al-Azhar, told the daily Al-Ahram.

During the 18-day uprising that ousted Mubarak, there was a rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. Each group protected the other during prayer sessions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.

But in the months that followed, there has been a sharp rise in sectarian tensions, as the once quiescent Salafis have become more forceful in trying to spread their version of an Islamic way of life. In particular, they have focused their wrath on Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 80 million people.

On Friday, a few hundred Salafis marched through Cairo to praise al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and condemning the U.S. operation that killed him.

Critics say Egyptian military authorities have done too little to stem the religious violence. But authorities arrested 190 people after the church attack, sending them to military prosecutions and threatening the maximum penalty against anyone attacking houses of worship.

Copts complain of widespread discrimination, including tight restrictions on building or repairing churches, while Muslim places of worship do not face such limits.

In one of the worst attacks against them, a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a church in the port city of Alexandria on Jan. 1, setting off days of protests. Egypt made some arrests but never charged anyone with the attack.

Tensions have been building for the past year as Salafis protested the alleged abduction by the Coptic Church of a priest's wife, Camilla Shehata. The Salafis claim she converted to Islam to escape an unhappy marriage — a phenomenon they maintain is common.

Because divorce is banned in the Coptic Church, with rare exceptions such as conversion, some Christian women resort to conversion to Islam or another Christian denomination to get out of a marriage.

Shehata's case was even used by Iraq's branch of al-Qaida as a justification for an attack on a Baghdad church that killed 68 people and other threats by the group against Christians.

On Saturday just before the violence erupted in Imbaba, Shehata appeared with her husband and child on a Christian TV station broadcast from outside of Egypt and asserted that she was still a Christian and had never converted.

"Let the protesters leave the Church alone and turn their attention to Egypt's future," she said from an undisclosed location.

In the Egyptian Sinai desert, hundreds of Bedouins forced authorities to set free a prisoner after laying siege to the main courthouse, firing gunshots in the air and burning tires, witnesses said.

Here' a summary of what i've highlighted:

12 people dead and a church burned, 

attack on the church  

increasing hostility toward Egypt's Coptic Christians over the past few months has met with little interference from the country's military rulers.

recent attacks on Christians  

Christian man had an ear cut off  

clashes Sunday between Muslims and Christians who pelted each other with stones

Coptic violence, some Christians have opened fire at Muslims.

Six Muslims were among the dead, 

 large mob of Muslims toward the church. Christians created a human barricade around the building and clashes erupted. Gunfire sounded across the neighborhood, and witnesses said people on rooftops were firing into the crowd.

The two sides accused each other of firing first.

Crowds of hundreds of Muslims from the neighborhood lobbed firebombs at homes, shops and the church. Residents say Christians were hiding inside. Muslims chanted: "With our blood and soul, we defend you, Islam."

the Muslim crowd moved to a Christian-owned apartment building nearby and set it on fire.

Muslim youths attacked Coptic Christian protesters,

both sides furiously throwing stones, including one Christian who held a large wooden cross in one hand while flinging rocks with the other.

Islamic clerics denounced the violence, "These events do not benefit either Muslim or Copts,"

rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. Each group protected the other during prayer sessions in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.

a suicide bomber killed 21 people outside a church in the port city of Alexandria on Jan. 1,