WATANI International
30 October 2011
A sense of reassurance reigned among Egyptians in general and Copts in specific following meetings which took place last week between Coptic figures and the authorities. Tensions had been on the rise following the 9 October attack against peaceful Coptic demonstrators in Maspero, Cairo, who were protesting against the burning of a church in Merinab, Aswan. The brutal attack by the military, which left some 27 Copts and one Muslim passer-by dead and some 300 injured, was described by State TV as an attack by armed Copts against the military, and was used to instigate against the Copts.
Rebuilding the burnt church
In response to an invitation by Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, Head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) which now rules Egypt, Pope Shenouda III met the Field Marshall at the headquarters of the Military Council last Monday.
A Church source described the closed meeting which lasted for more than two hours and which discussed the aftermath of the Maspero attack, as very positive. The Field Marshall and the Pope rejected any attempts at foreign intervention, and the Military Council announced the formation of a national fact finding commission to investigate the Maspero incident.
Also discussed were the demonstrations by Egyptians outside Egypt to protest the Maspero attack, and angry international response to the incident, as well as the recent anti discrimination law decreed by the SCAF, and the shortly-expected unified law for building places of worship.
A delegation of bishops which had earlier met Lieutenant General Sami Anan to discuss the Maspero attack and the relevant deplorable instigation against Copts by State TV, had called for accurate, transparent, impartial media coverage.
Following the meeting between Tantawi and the Pope, the Military Council announced it will rebuild the Mar-Girgis church in Merinab.
The downfall of Egypt
Also on Monday, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf met a group of Copts and Muslims from inside and outside Egypt to discuss Coptic grievances. Participating in the meeting were the Minister of Justice Mohamed al-Guindy, and the Head of the National Justice Committee Seif Abdel-Fattah. The group included the head of the Coptic association in the UK Hilmy Girgis, head of the Egyptian medical society in the UK Magdy Ishaq, Alexandria Melli (Coptic Community) Council member Kameel Seddiq, coordinator general of the Egyptian alliance in Europe Mohamed Mounir Shaheen, and Watani International managing editor Samia Sidhom. Rights activist and founder of the Egyptians against Religious Discrimination Mohamed Mounir Megahed was scheduled to participate but had to apologise at the last minute.
Dr Ishaq stressed that the Maspero attack has served to tarnish Egypt’s image abroad, especially in view of it’s being one in a series of attacks that have targeted Copts this year. Egyptians abroad, he explained, are pained by the sectarian attacks and hatred culture that have both been on the rise lately. Sharaf explained that external forces are behind the escalation, especially given that it is now obvious to everyone that the only factor that can really bring about the downfall of Egypt is sectarian conflict. “Egypt will never fall because of political or economic, or even social problems,” Dr Sharaf insisted. “The only thing that can bring Egypt down is sectarian strife, and outside forces exploit this to their benefit.”
What has been done
“If you are aware that there are forces that are out to get Egypt, what have you done to tackle that?” asked Ms Sidhom. “We have conducted wide investigations to confirm the involvement of certain States in funding sedition in Egypt,” Dr Guindy said, adding that the results of these investigations will be presented to the legal authorities to take action.
“We have also issued an anti discrimination law and are about to issue a unified law for building places of worship.” Dr Guindy remarked that the Cabinet insisted on issuing a unified law for the places of worship rather than a law to govern the building of churches, since a separate law to build the churches would go against anti discrimination.
“There is also the National Justice Committee which was formed by the Cabinet expressly to tackle sectarian tension.” Upon which Mr Abdel-Fattah explained that the Committee does fact-finding work, and also attempts to abort conflict before it erupts. “Even if there is a general feeling that investigations are slow and that they do not achieve the required tangible results, we were able through investigations to save the nation from four sectarian incidents before they erupted, but this was never made public,” explained Abdel-Fattah.
The issue of the Coptic detainees held in the Maspero attack was brought up since, as explicitly put by Ms Sidhom, “we know first-hand that they never attacked the army.” Dr Guindy insisted that everything will be done for them to get fair treatment.
Voting right for Copts abroad
Dr Ishaq and Dr Girgis insisted that laws and investigations are fine, but where is the political decision? “How come the Media Minister Usama Heikal was not dismissed after State TV flagrantly instigated against the Copts?” they asked. To this the Prime Minister replied that Mr Heikal has only been in office for a short period, so has had no time to base a policy. This excuse was met with vocal disapprobation on part of all the members of the group, to which Dr Sharaf and Dr Guindy explained that, in all cases, there are plans to dissolve the Media Ministry in the future. “We are in the process of the formation of supreme councils for the press and for the radio and television, to replace the ministry.”
Dr Shahin remarked that, as an Egyptian Muslim, he was pained by the manner in which his Coptic fellow citizens were being treated, and strongly demanded that they should be granted full citizenship rights. “Nothing less than that will do,” he said.
The issue of the right of Egyptians outside Egypt to vote was then introduced by Dr Girgis. The Minister of Justice confirmed that this is a legal right, but said that due to procedural reasons, it would not be possible to empower it for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Notwithstanding, he promised that Egyptians abroad will be able to vote for referenda and presidential elections.
Tuesday evening, however, the Supreme Administrative Court issued a ruling that obliges the government to empower Egyptians outside Egypt to cast their ballots.
Their blood cries out
Talk then switched to the horrendous bombing of the church of the Saints in Alexandria on New Year Eve 2011, which blew up 20 Copts as they left church after Midnight service, and injured some 150 others. When the church contacted the prosecution office in Alexandria to know the result of the investigation, the church was told, Dr Seddiq said, that the case had been closed. No amount of reports, queries, or claims persuaded the prosecution to open an investigation into the bombing, he said. “The church even filed a case against the Cabinet and the Military Council demanding an inquest.”
Recalling the heart-rending hours following the bombing, Dr Seddiq demanded of the Justice Minister a fair investigation. “I rushed to the scene some three hours after the bombing,” he said, “to find the still-warm flesh of the victims who had been blown into smithereens sticking onto the walls and human blood and members scattered everywhere. A middle-aged man stood crying his heart out in a corner. ‘I’ve lost my wife and two daughters’ he wept. ‘I loved them so, I loved them so.’
“Where there is a murder there is a murderer; this is sufficiently self-evident,” Dr Seddiq said. “We demand to know who the criminals who bombed the church in Alexandria are. We have no-one in specific to accuse and we do not care to what affiliation the killers belong. But we want them known, caught, and brought to justice. This is the right of the victims and the right of the community. How can the crime simply pass as though it never happened? Dr Guindy promised a fair investigation into the case.
“Another equally important point,” Dr Seddiq said, “is that the victims and their families have never been compensated by the State for their losses. These people either lost their lives or health owing to serious shortcoming by the State security apparatus, so must be ranked as ‘martyrs’, and as such, Egypt owes them compensation.” Again, Dr Sharaf promised this will be looked into.
When later asked how she felt about the meeting, Ms Sidhom said, “We were all grateful for a full hour-and-a-half of the Prime Minister’s time during which we candidly discussed Coptic grievances. We were met with goodwill and serious promises. It remains to be seen how these will materialise on the ground.”
The rule of law
Abdel-Rahman Ali, an expert in Islamic movements, told Watani that the Maspero incident was so grotesque as to draw criticism from inside and outside Egypt. This put the Military Council under very heavy pressure to remedy the ills and improve their image. The Council thus took several steps in this direction, holding a press conference and several TV interviews; offering their condolences to Pope Shenouda III and pledging to rebuild the burnt church in Merinab. But the last and most important step of bringing the culprits to justice has not yet been done
Extremists, however, Mr Ali says, have got the message that such aggression cannot go unacknowledged or unnoticed.
“The past nine months, since the January Revolution, have confirmed that without pressuring the State and the Military Council, no rights can be obtained,” is how Sheikh Usama al-Qoussi, a moderate Salafi Muslim, interprets the situation.
Rights activist Nabil Sharafeddin praises last week’s meetings, saying that it is good to always remember there are other partners in the nation. Yet the fact remains that when the military decided to use aggression against demonstrators, it chose to do so against a peaceful minority that had never resorted to aggression, Mr Sharafeddin says.
“I applaud the military’s decision to rebuild the Merinab church,” he says, “but the decision only came in the wake of the meeting with the Pope. This means that the old ways of resolving conflict through ‘conciliation sessions’ is still alive and kicking. We require a State where conflict is resolved through the rule of law.”
For his part, rights activist Mohamed Mounir Megahed of Egyptians against Religious Discrimination believes the meeting between the Pope and Field Marshall Tantawi to be an inauspicious move, since it places the Pope as the political representative of the Copts.
“The meeting and its aftermath was just a show to patch up the situation, instead of treating the deep injury,” the Islamist lawyer, Tharwat al-Kharabawy, separated from MB, told Watani.