In Nag Hammadi, Qena

WATANI International 10 January 2010 As the Copts of the town of Nag Hammadi in Qena, Upper Egypt, left their church of Mar-Yuhanna (St John) following Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve last Wednesday, a masked person in a speeding car opened fire on them in the street. Seven persons died—one of them a young policeman who had been standing on guard by the church; the other six were members of the Coptic congregation—and 11 were injured and moved to hospital in critical conditions. The car fled. Bishop of Nag Hammadi, Anba Kyrillos, escaped unscathed, but there are strong rumours that he was targeted by the attack. Miserable security Watani talked to Anba Kyrillos who accused the security authorities of failing miserably to protect the church or come to the rescue of the Copts whose bodies lay on the street in their blood for some 40 minutes before the police came. “The man who opened fire was in a dark green Fiat 132 car with black glass and no licence plates. All the victims were young men aged between 16 and 25; some had been serving as altar boys and deacons in the Midnight Mass. The murdered were Ayman Luqa, Bola Atef, Mina Saïd, Rafiq William, Bishoi Labib, Abanoub Nashed, and Ayman Hisham. Anba Kyrillos accused a man who goes by the name of Hamam al-Kamouni who is a seasoned criminal and is well known to the police. Among other crimes, Kamouni had attacked Coptic young women near churches in Nag Hammadi by throwing acid on them. “We had received threats that the Copts would be targeted on Christmas Day, which I informed the police about.” The town was full of rumours that the Muslims of Nag Hammadi planned to avenge themselves against the Copts in retaliation for an incident that occurred last November when a Muslim girl from a village near Farshout, Nag Hammadi, was allegedly raped by a Coptic man. The Muslims of Farshout took the incident outside its individual proportions and exacted a terrifying, vengeful, vicious rampage of arson and looting against the town Copts, their property, and businesses, resulting in some EGP4.6 million worth of losses. “We refused to conduct any reconciliation without first compensating the innocent Copts for their losses,” Anba Kyrillos said. “This angered the security and local authorities and, even though it is the custom for local politicians to visit the church on Christmas Eve to wish the congregation Merry Christmas, none came this year.” Tomb of the martyrs On Thursday evening Kamouni, whose original name is Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, was found by the police and arrested together with Hindawi Saïd Mohamed Hassan who was driving the car and Qorashy Abul-Haggag Mohamed Ali. The latter two were taken as accomplices in the crime. On Friday, Egypt’s public prosecutor Abdel-Megid Mahmoud headed to the scene of the crime in Nag Hammadi to prosecute the culprits. Amid heightened security a collective funeral was held for the Coptic victims on Thursday—Christmas day. Both Anba Kyrillos and Anba Pimen, Bishop of Nagada and Qous, officiated the funeral service. The security authorities allowed no mourners, apart from direct family members, to accompany the coffins to the cemetery for the burials, neither were the families allowed to hold the customary condolence assemblies till Friday evening. The six Coptic victims were not buried in their family graves, but in one tomb which was termed the tomb of the martyrs. Anba Pimen told Watani it was not surprising Copts were being targeted so freely, since their attackers were never caught or penalised. Chaos Meanwhile, chaos spread over Nag Hammadi as angry Copts gathered before the hospital to check on the conditions of the injured. The police tried to disperse them resorting to the use of tear gas and rubber bullets, but this only increased their anger, especially in view of the severe security shortcoming in protecting them against the Muslims’ hostilities. Violence spread widely in the town with Muslims and Copts attacking one other and destroying property. The police was unable to bring calm to the town until 7:00pm on Thursday when it imposed a curfew till 6:00am the following day. The Interior Ministry issued an official statement in which it described the incident in brief, attributing it to revenge. Safwat Samaan, an eye-witness and human rights activist, told Watani that, following the killings, violence spread with Muslims and Christians attacking each other’s property. The police failed to control the situation despite tear gas and rubber bullets which led to injuring nine Copts as they gathered in front of the hospital to receive the bodies of the victims on Thursday morning. It is not surprising, he said, that the situation has worsened since the police never took any decisive action following the Farshout riots last November. Another activist, Ra’fat Samir who heads the branch of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights in Luxor, told Watani that the only way to bring an end to sectarian violence is to impose a tight security policy and to prosecute the criminals. “Violence has already spread to neighbouring villages,’ he added. Against sectarian violence Human rights and civil organisations planned a demonstration last Saturday in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in Cairo to condemn the rising violence against Copts. The call for the demonstration carried the support of some 26 rights groups and the signatures of some 64 individuals. Mounir Megahed, the general coordinator of Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination movement, said the demonstration was the first step towards a series of protest actions against the violence against Copts. He stressed the importance of bringing to justice those criminals who targeted unarmed Copts for no reason other than being Coptic. Al-Kalima (The Word) Centre for Human Rights warned against the repeated scenario of detaining some Copts by the police to use them as a tool to pressure their families into accepting reconciliation with the criminals. The Egyptian Union for Human Rights strongly condemned the Nag Hammadi terrorist attack. It bitterly compared between the mild official response in the Nag Hammadi case and the wrath that characterised the response to the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini, the Muslim woman who was killed by an extremist in a courtroom in Dresden.

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