The sectarian violence which erupted last Friday in the village of Sharbat in al-Nahda district in Amriya, south of Alexandria, and which was supposedly contained that evening, promises to blow into a large-scale crisis.
The sectarian violence which erupted last Friday in the village of Sharbat in al-Nahda district in Amriya, south of Alexandria, and which was supposedly contained that evening, promises to blow into a large-scale crisis.
The attack
The violence had come in the wake of a story leaked of indecent pictures of a young Muslim woman villager being circulated on the mobile phones of the villagers, sent by a young Coptic tailor, Murad Sami Girgis, who is married and has two children. A crowd of some six thousand Muslim villagers armed with sticks, clubs, and knives waged an attack against the village Copts. One house and nine shops were ruined, looted, and torched. Two are tailor shops which belong to the brothers Samir and Girgis Rashad, four furniture stores and an electric appliance store belonging to Abiskharoun Abu-Soliman, and one shop for electric appliances owned by al-Sabei Andrawus. When the mob converged upon the Abu-Soliman shops, a member of the Abu-Soliman family fired shots in the air, hoping to scare the crowd away, but this only served to escalate matters. Later, as Andrawus’s house and shop blazed, his Muslim neighbours took him and his children into their home for protection.
The police and fire trucks were called, but the Muslim mob would not let them into the village until Alexandria governor Usama al-Fuli arrived together with local MPs and security officials.
Collective punishment
A conciliation session was swiftly held at the local mosque. Participating were the local government and security officials, as well as the village elders and Father Boqtor Nashed of the local Mar-Girgis (St George) church. It was decided that Girgis and his family should be banished from the village, after which peace reigned.
Throughout the following few days, though, the Muslim villagers raised the ceiling of their demands, and official efforts at calming their anger failed. They insisted that all the Copts in the village should leave. They threatened that if, by Friday, the Copts and their priest had not left, what remains unharmed of their homes, property, and church would be burned.
The Coptic villagers are keeping to their homes in fear. Several told Watani on condition of anonymity that they resent the “inexplicable inaction by the authorities”. They feel unprotected, and neither the local security nor politicians are doing anything to stop the heavy-handed “collective punishment” against the Copts. “No investigation was conducted,” one eyewitness told Watani, “on whether or not the allegation that led to all this violence was true. And, even if we go along with the story that one man did something terribly wrong, why should all the village Copts be penalised for it? Where is the law in all this?”
Several Coptic families have already left the village for fear of their lives, but the Muslims insist that all 54 Coptic families in the village should go.
Money: the root of the matter?
Nabil Sami Girgis, the brother the Girgis who was accused of circulating the indecent pictures, denied that his brother had done such a thing. He told Watani the pictures were faked in order to be used as a pretext to attack the [wealthy] Copts. “Who is the young woman?” he bitterly asked. “No one never even mentioned who she was, and no action was taken against her, which would have been normal if she had existed in the first place. This whole business was made up because the Muslim villagers demanded that we pay them money, which we didn’t.”
The Copts insist that the real reason for the attack against them is not the unsubstantiated story of indecent pictures. A Coptic villager who asked for his name to be withheld told Watani that several Muslims in the village owed money to Coptic traders and, when they could not pay back their debts, they made up the story which brought on the violence. This, he said, explains why the Muslims insist that ALL the Copts should leave.
Where’s the law?
Watani contacted Anba Pachomeus, Archbishop of Beheira within the area of which al-Nahda lies, for his comment. Anba Pachomeus said he was following up on the problem and would do his best to sustain the peaceful coexistence between the village Muslims and Copts. Wrongdoers should be taken to task, he said, but that should be done in accordance with and respect of the law.