Muslim and Coptic activists have formed a 20-member delegation that will meet the Speaker of the People’s Assembly (PA) Saad al-Katatni next Sunday
WATANI International
10 February 2012
Muslim and Coptic activists have formed a 20-member delegation that will meet the Speaker of the People’s Assembly (PA) Saad al-Katatni next Sunday to demand his intervention for a fair resolution of the sectarian problem in the village of Sharbat in al-Nahda, southwest of Alexandria. Several liberal MPs, including Emad Gad, Mustafa al-Naggar, and Hisham Selim support the delegations initiative.
Under the pretext of unsubstantiated allegations that a young Coptic tailor, Murad Sami Girgis, had circulated indecent photos of a Muslim woman, Coptic homes and property were ruined, looted, and burned. Several Coptic families were forced to leave the village and relocate elsewhere, including the elder of the Copts in the village, Abiskharoun Abu-Soliman, and his extended family. The judgement, which was issued by the Muslim elders of the village and seven local sheikhs in a so-called traditional conciliation session on Wednesday 1 February, ordered the sale of the Copt’s property in the village. If the Copts refused to leave the village, the Muslims threatened a new spree of burning whatever remained of their homes, businesses, and property. The Coptic families left; the threat was too ominous to ignore.
The Coptic villagers insist that the allegations upon which the judgement was passed are untrue, and that the root of the matter lies in money problems between a number of the Muslim villagers and the Abu-Solimans. A Coptic villager who asked to remain anonymous told Watani that a number of Muslim villagers owed money to the wealthy Coptic trader Abu-Soliman and did not intend to pay back their debts. Hence the insistence that he leaves the village with all his extended family and that their property should be sold. No member of the Abu-Solimans was implicated in the allegation of circulating the indecent photos of the Muslim woman who, incidentally was never identified.
Anba Pachomeus, Archbishop of Beheira, Matrouh and Pentapolis (all west of the Delta) last week sent a memorandum to Mr Katatni asking for measures to be taken to achieve justice for the Copts.
The memorandum drew attention to the attack against the Copts of Sharbat, which lies in the Beheira parish, as well as to other attacks in Beheira against church-owned buildings and encroachment by Muslim locals upon Church-owned lands in several Beheira villages. Anba Pachomeus demanded justice and security for the Copts and their Church; and confirmation that Egyptian Copts, their homes and property, as well as the Church and its property and endowments, would all be offered protection on grounds of citizenship rights.