The election of the Islamist Mohamed Mursi as president of Egypt has thrown the Copts, who had been hoping for a civil State to secure their rights as Egyptian citizens,
The election of the Islamist Mohamed Mursi as president of Egypt has thrown the Copts, who had been hoping for a civil State to secure their rights as Egyptian citizens, into shock and frustration. Many young people made it no secret they might even attempt immigration.
The new president’s inaugural speech, however, promised equal opportunity for Copts, and conveyed a message of reassurance. This induced many Copts to adopt a “wait and see” attitude; at the same time to put forward their grievances and the solutions they wished for them. Major among these grievances are issues of citizenship rights, religious freedom, and discrimination.
Cultural turnaround
For his part, the Coptic lawyer and activist Kamal Zakher sees that the mission of the new president is not easy. Most prominent on his agenda, Zakher believes, should be to battle the culture of discrimination which has been brewing for decades, sown by the Islamists. His task, he says, should not centre merely on passing anti-discriminatory laws or implementing them, but on changing the culture of the community. He should work to make a turnaround in the prevalent culture, to foster moderation and tolerance and to instate the rule of law, especially that many Islamists consider that they have taken over the country by electing an Islamist president.
Yet Zakher is not optimistic. He believes it will be almost impossible for Mursi to work the required turnaround since he introduced himself to Egyptians from the start as an Islamist. It does not make things easier that he has to face the hardline Salafis who will be sure to place hurdles before passing a unified law for places of worship or a law against discrimination. The notion that churches may be treated equally with mosques is, for them, preposterous.
The Coalition of Egypt’s Copts demanded of the new president that he should work to preserve the Egyptian identity and its moderate culture. They also demanded full citizenship for all the Egyptians; implementing non- discrimination; respecting all international treaties and agreements Egypt is signatory to; and preserving the Egyptian human rights, especially where women and minorities are concerned.
Unified law for places of worship
The problems involved with building churches in Egypt tops Coptic grievances, and were the reason behind most of the sectarian attacks against Copts during the past decades. The 25 January 2011 Revolution did not put an end to that; the series of torching, demolishing or closing churches included the church in Sole, Etfeeh in March 2011; in Imbaba in May 2011; Ain Shams, Cairo, also in May 2011; and in Merinab Aswan in September 2011. Coptic protests twice erupted in retaliation in Maspero, Cairo, in March and October 2011.
Since way back in 2005, human rights activists and organisations proposed a unified law for places of worship, with the aim of containing the problem. The bill, however, was shelved. After the 2011 revolution, the bill again resurfaced but, even after profuse discussions in which al-Azhar took part, never saw light.
The bill for the unified law was rejected by Islamists. So will the president, who belongs to the Islamist stream, be able to push the law through?
Judge and previous MP Amir Ramzy says that Mursi, in his capacity as president has the authority to pass the unified law before the parliamentary elections which are preliminarily scheduled for next October. Should he do so, he would go a long way towards putting an end to sectarian strife.
Criminalising discrimination
Religious discrimination is also at the core of Coptic grievances. Whether on the official or non-official levels, Copts find themselves victims of discrimination. A sore example is their exclusion from senior posts. Another is the belittlement or outright elimination of their role in Egypt’s history in school curricula, and the constant Islamisation of the textbooks.
The lawyer and former MP Ibtissam Habib says that non-discrimination should be activated through a constitution and legislation that does not distinguish among citizens. “Purging curricula of material which fosters hate and bigotry is a vitally important step in the right direction. It may, however, prove an uneasy task if the Salafis manage to dominate the education system,” Habib warns.
Ramzy too believes that tolerant education is pivotal to battle discriminatory attitudes. The new president, Ramzy added, has to work to reduce the Islamised curricula, and to promote the values common between the heavenly religions.
Punishing the criminals
The Copts have a single demand which, though specific to one horror incident, extends to most crimes committed against them. This is that a thorough investigation should be conducted into the bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on the Christmas Eve of 2011, which left 21 dead and dozens injured. Even though the pre-Revolution investigation had pointed at Palestinian and local culprits, the investigation was discontinued once the revolution erupted on 25 January 2011. Demands by the Church for justice went unheeded, says the lawyer Joseph Malak who represents the Coptic Church in this case.
Kameel Seddiq, member of the Alexandria Coptic Orthodox Melli (Community) Council agrees with Malak that an investigation should divulge who the criminals are, and that they should be brought to justice. This should also apply to all the attacks against Copts, the majority of which went without any criminal caught.
Coptic deputy
The new president pledged to choose a Coptic deputy. Fearing that the deputy might be chosen from among Coptic figures who are nonetheless non-representative of the Coptic community and who do not fight for their rights, a group of Coptic activists met in Cairo to nominate two figures for the post. They nominated the political scientist and deputy to Cairo governor Samir Morqos, and businessman and Tourism Minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour. Both are well-respected by the Church, the Coptic community and the public level, and have an honourable credit in working for citizenship rights.
The activists formed a committee to meet Mursi to introduce the two names.
They issued a document for the president with the Coptic demands, citing among others: “speeding up the passage of the unified law for places of worship, and the anti-discrimination law; achieving full citizenship; and balanced representation of Copts in legislative councils and in executive posts.”
WATANI International
8 July 2012