Rallying for Coptic rights

Islamic scholar Mohamed Emara was last weekend referred by Egypt’s public prosecutor Abdel-Megid Mahmoud to the supreme State security prosecution for investigation on charges of disdaining Christianity. The lawyer Naguib Gabraïl, who heads the Egyptian Union for Human Rights (EUHR), had submitted a report to Mr Mahmoud claiming that Emara’s latest book Taqrir Elmi (Scientific Report), published by al-Azhar institution, derided Christianity by claiming it was a pagan, polytheistic religion, and that the Bible was falsified. Al-Azhar is the Cairo-based topmost authority on Sunni Islam and is funded by Egyptian—Muslim and Copt—taxpayer money. Last Monday, al-Azhar withdrew the book from the market. It was claimed that Emara’s book was written in response to another book, of anonymous author and publisher, that had derided Islam.
Dr Emara’s referral to the supreme State security prosecution and the book withdrawal came in the wake of a rally organised by the EUHR to protest against the oppression of Copts in Egypt. The rally was held in front of the building of the Supreme Court in Downtown Cairo and was joined by some 50 Copts.
Carrying banners demanding the protection of Copts and an end to the spate of attacks against them, the participants denounced the recent attacks against Copts, their churches and their property, in Dayrout, Mallawi, Farshout and Abu-Tesht, in Upper Egypt.
A number of Coptic mothers whose daughters had ‘disappeared’ took part in the rally, demanding that the police should bring back their daughters—many of whom are minors. It is claimed the girls were abducted, made to convert to Islam, and forced to marry Muslim men.
The participants protested against the official policy of curtailing religions freedom and turning a blind eye to the regular discrimination and violence against Copts. They condemned the State’s inadequacy in protecting the Copts and its failure to bring the perpetrators of anti-Coptic violence to justice, satisfied only with coercing the Copts into extra-judicial settlements. The protestors demanded the President Mubarak to take action and release the Father Matta’ous Wahba, who was last year sentenced for five years in prison for performing the marriage rituals of a converted woman to a Coptic man. They called for the passage of the unified law for building places of worship, and for an end to the attack on Christianity that is raging in the media and some cultural institutions.
Last week saw rallies held by Copts in the United States and Europe in front of the Egyptian missions in their respective cities expressing their “resentment and rejection” of the persecution that Copts in Egypt are subjected to.

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