WATANI International
28 November 2010
The Egyptians against Religious Discrimination (MARED) movement issued a communiqué last Thursday condemning the Umraniya incident.
“Whether the building in question was a social services building converted into a church or a church building with constructional violations,” the communiqué read, “the government is fully responsible for the escalation of sectarian violence on that head.
“If the building had been licensed for use in social services but was converted into a church, the obvious reason is that the State has steadily refused to pass a unified law for places of worship. There have been repeated calls since 1972 to pass such a law in order to abolish the discriminatory regulations that have been in place since the Ottoman occupation in Egypt. Several bills to pass a unified law for places of worship were placed on hold and never found their way to Parliament’s agenda.”
“If the problem was that the building violated the approved permit, it is also the responsibility of the government which invariably falls short of implementing laws indiscriminately. The building in question has been erected in a huge neighbourhood of unplanned, haphazard buildings, the vast majority of which violate the most basic building standards. Why has the law been imposed on the church building to the exclusion of all others?”
“Amazingly, this governmental crime which left at least one man dead and scores injured has been committed in the wake of wide governmental condemnation of the US report on religious freedoms for citing such crimes in Egypt against non-Sunni-Muslims.”
The communiqué strongly denounced the treatment of the Copts at the hands of State and security officials, and demanded that the Interior Ministry should compensate the families of the dead and injured for their losses, allow the building of the St Mary’s and St Michael’s church in Talbiya to proceed without waiting for the passage of the unified law for places of worship, and that Giza governor should publicly apologise for the disturbance and losses caused to Talbiya and Umraniya residents by halting construction of the church and assaulting peaceful civilians.