WATANI International
28 November 2010
Clashes between Copts and security forces in Giza last Wednesday left two young men dead and some 100 Copts injured. In his weekly sermon on Wednesday evening at St Mark’s cathedral in Abbasiya, Cairo, Pope Shenouda III said he was sorry such [violent sectarian] incidents take place, and called upon Egypt’s governors and security officials to exercise wisdom and calm when tackling such events. “Power should be used to serve the people, not for violence. Violence only generates counter-violence,” he said.
No new church
The clashes began when the Giza security forces attempted to disperse a Coptic crowd that had gathered for two days at the grounds of St Mary’s and St Michael’s church, which is still under construction, in the underprivileged neighbourhood of Talbiya in Giza. The construction engineer of the local government had reported a few days earlier that the building violated the approved drawings, upon which the security forces ordered all construction work at the site to be halted. When the Copts resisted, the security forces last Sunday confiscated the construction equipment they were using and asked them to leave the site, which the Copts refused to do and proceeded to build manually. They demonstrated at the site which is adjacent to the ring road around Cairo; the demonstration spilled over onto the ring road, stopping traffic for an hour. It transpired that the building had been licensed as a Church-owned-and-operated social services building but the Copts who had for years tried in vain to obtain licence to build a church—Egyptian law and regulations pre-condition almost prohibitive procedures for the licensing of new churches—were using it as a church. The building violation was exposed when they began to add a dome.
The Church attempted to resolve the problem with the local district authorities and Giza governor Sayed Abdel-Aziz. The governor agreed to do his best to change the original approval into a church licence. It looked like the problem was on its way to a happy ending.
Live ammunition
At dawn on Wednesday, the Copts at the church grounds were taken by surprise to find the security forces firing tear bombs in an attempt to disperse them. They ran into the nearby side streets and alleyways, but the forces chased them with sticks farther away. The Coptic crowd decided to head to the Giza governorate to protest what they saw as an unjustified attack against them given that, in their eyes, the problem had been resolved and finished with. At the governorate premises the demonstration turned violent; the Copts and the security forces hurled stones and rocks at one another and the security men shot at the Copts with rubber bullets then with live ammunition. Twelve security men were injured. The 19-year-old Makarius Gad was shot; he was quickly taken to Umm al-Misriyeen hospital where his friends were told that a live bullet had landed in his lung, killing him instantly.
Scores were injured and moved to hospital. Some 50 Copts who had minor injuries left the hospital in the evening. According to Father Mina Zarif of Mar-Mina church in Umraniya, Giza, some 50 others—35 of them with serious injuries—remained in Umm al-Misriyeen and al-Haram hospitals in Giza and at Qasr al-Aini’s in Cairo. On Friday morning it was announced that 22-year-old Malak Mubarak did not survive bullet injuries in liver and the lung, and lost his life. The demonstrators moved to the local government office in Giza, hurling stones at the building and at parked vehicles. They finally gathered in the small street in front of Mar-Mina’s church in Umraniya while a Muslim crowd was gathering at the back street behind Mar-Mina’s. Even though they chanted antagonistic slogans, no clashes took place. Another crowd gathered in the church at Talbiya but were persuaded by the priests, the local politicians and the security men to hold their peace.
Banning the lawyers
As evening set in, the situation had been brought under control.
Some 200 demonstrators were reported missing; their families believed they were caught and held in detention. It was circulated that a number of them was detained at Burg al-Arab prison west of Alexandria while others were held at the Central Security Camp 10km west of Cairo.
Some news sites circulated news that security sources explained the unusually harsh response they used against the Coptic demonstrators by claiming the Copts had hurled Molotov cocktails at the Giza governorate headquarters, a claim which eye-witnesses categorically deny.
Late in the evening 157 detainees were moved to the court house in Giza to stand before the prosecution in the morning, upon which 22 lawyers assigned by the families of the detainees and by Giza bishopric to represent the detainees headed to the court house. The security officials, however, banned them from going in or meeting the detainees. Fearing that the detainees would be forced to sign any documents or confessions that would jeopardise their legal rights, a number of human rights groups—among them the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, al-Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, and al Helaly Association for Liberties—sent over 18 lawyers to represent the detainees. Again, they were not allowed to meet any of them. The security officials allowed only two young lawyers, Ahmed Abdel Hamid and Saber Fawzy, who were not among the 40 lawyers, to attend the questioning.
The detainees were charged with 14 charges which ranged from demonstrating illegally, carrying white weapons and blocking public roads; to the intentional destruction of public property for a terrorist purpose and the attempt to kill police officials. Such charges carry sentences of 15 years imprisonment.
All the detainees remain in custody for two weeks pending investigation.
Secret burial
Thursday morning saw the lawyers who were not allowed to defend the detainees conduct a demonstration at the prosecutor-general’s headquarters to protest the curtailment of the legal rights of the detainees, their further “unjustified” detention, and what they described as the unpardonable harshness against Copts. They filed a complaint to the prosecutor-general Abdel-Megid Mahmoud to that effect.
Around 10:00pm Wednesday evening, Gad’s family was allowed to take his body from the hospital and take him to his home village of al-Harga in Baliana, Sohag, some 550km south of Cairo, to bury him. A family source told Watani they had been ordered by the security officials in Cairo to conduct the burial in secrecy in the early hours of the morning without holding a public funeral.
Word got around in Sohag, though, and Thursday morning saw demonstrations in the town protesting the undue harshness which led to Gad’s death.