The Education Directorate in Minya has responded to fanatic demands by students
to dismiss a newly-appointed school director allegedly because she is Coptic.
The Copt Mervat Seifein had been promoted to school director of Beni Mazar
Secondary Girls’ School in Beni Mazar, Minya. It was a routine promotion in
which she replaced the previous school director who is a Muslim. The students
protested and held a sit-in in the school courtyard asking for her removal and that
the previous Muslim director should remain in office. Ramadan Abdel-Hamid, the
Minya deputy to the Education Ministry responded to the girls’ demands, upon
which the students disbanded.
Ezzat Ibrahim, a Minya activist, demanded that a prompt official investigation be
conducted into the matter. “This is flagrant religious discrimination,” Mr Ibrahim
says. “It brings to mind the incident in the southern province of Qena when the
Islamists rose against the appointment of a Coptic governor in the past-Arab
Spring weeks in 2011, and the State gave in and went back on the appointment.
“It is catastrophic that some 50 or 100 teenage girls should impose their will on the
State. And it is equally disastrous that these girls were pushed to do so by a group
of fanatic Islamists. The positive official response amounts to an invitation for
religious discrimination. The deputy minister who did that must be dismissed.”
Watani International
24 February 2016