The Maspero Youth Union (MYU) has taken a decision to put off indefinitely the march it had planned after sunset today from the North Cairo district of Shubra to Maspero in Downtown Cairo
The Maspero Youth Union (MYU) has taken a decision to put off indefinitely the march it had planned after sunset today from the North Cairo district of Shubra to Maspero in Downtown Cairo, with the purpose of protesting against the official inaction regarding the injustice inflicted on the Copts of Dahshur.
There were demands that the culprits who looted and ruined the houses and businesses of the Copts in Dahshur should be caught and brought to justice; the Copts should be compensated for their heavy losses; and they should be allowed to go back home securely under police protection.
Since last Wednesday, however, the 110 Coptic families who had been obliged to flee their Giza hometown of Dahshur in view of the attack against them by the Muslim townsmen began returning to town, under police protection. Each family was compensated with the initial sum of EGP10,000; a sum which is meager considering their losses. Very few families found their homes in livable condition; the majority went back to homes in conditions that can at best be described as ruins. [http://www.wataninet.com/watani_Article_Details.aspx?A=29913].
Given that the State has taken initial action—even if insufficient—towards the resolution of the problems of Dahshur Copts, the MYU decided to put off the march. It has decided, however, that together with other rights activists, a press conference should be held at noon tomorrow in Cairo to disclose all the facts regarding the Dahshur incident. They will also remind of similar incidents where individual trifling disputes were allowed to escalate into wide-scale attacks against Copts, their churches, homes, property and businesses, in what amounted to collective penalty against the Copts.
Participating in the press conference will be Egyptians against Religious Discrimination (MARED), and the commission for combating sectarianism at the Popular Coalition Party, the Mina Danial movement, Coptic Civic Rights Group, the Lotus Revolution Alliance, the Egyptian Democratic Social Party, and the Free Front against Religious Discrimination.
Further demands will include the implementation of the law and the abolition of urfi sessions—the out-of-law settlements that have been time and again in the majority of cases of attacks against Copts, and through which the Copts were obliged, if not threatened, to relinquish their legal rights. Additionally, demands will be made regarding Egypt’s new constitution which is being currently drafted and which many see as carrying increasingly ‘Islamised’ notations. It will be demanded that the constitution should included an article on anti-discrimination that clearly spells out the definition and various forms of discrimination.
Watani International
12 August 2012