WATANI International
30 November 2008
Al-Taweela is part of the eastern Cairo district of Ain-Shams Gharbiya which is home to some 30,000 residents a third of whom are Christian. Only one church serves the entire area of Ain-Shams Gharbiya and its 10,000-strong Coptic population.
Six years ago two Coptic residents purchased a building which was then used as a garment factory, renovated it and turned it into a social services building. Earlier this year, the Church obtained official licence to use the third floor to “practise religious rites”. This place was thus fitted out as a simple church and, on Saturday 22 November, an evening service was held in the new church.
One of the Coptic neighbours told Watani that, following the evening service, the sheikhs of the nearby mosque which was yet under construction—it had been established once the Muslims in the neighbourhood got wind of the fact that the Church was the new owner of the building—set up microphones on the unfinished walls and began to conduct prayers. The police came, removed the microphones, and halted the activity.
Sunday morning, the first Mass was held in the building. At sunset, Muslim crowds gathered in the neighbourhood streets for prayers, then the sheikhs sent out calls for jihad ; the crowds began pelting the church building with stones and the riots began. By 8:00pm the ranks of the rioters swelled to some 7000 men, women and even children. Some twenty police cars arrived, and tried to control the situation which had obviously got out of hand.
To the beating of drums, the rioters chanted Islamic slogans, calling upon all Muslims to bar the building of any church. They denounced the presence of anything Christian in their neighbourhood.
By 9:30pm the rioters escalated the violence, throwing stones, rocks, empty bottles and Molotov bombs at the church and the police, injuring one officer and several policemen, burning three cars and destroying the glass front of the building. The Christian residents kept to their homes; those who could flee the area did so. The church was closed down.
Despite the arrival of further police troupes the rioting did not end till at 4:00am. Random arrests were conducted; more than 600 rioters who were questioned and later released. Only five Muslims are now detained, as well as three Copts—Joseph Fouad, Emad Abdullah and Nessim Ramsis Youssef—who happened to be standing at a street corner, unable to reach their homes. By Thursday, they were all released.
Ain-Shams Gharbiya’s Christians were appalled at the attack. They told Watani they saw no reason whatsoever to warrant the assault. “What harm have we done to merit such an explosion?” a resident who asked to remain unnamed said. “It is not as if we’d built a nightclub; all we wanted was a place to pray in. We are being treated as though we were intruders who have to go away. What good is all the talk about citizenship rights when we have to suffer like this?” They blamed the fanatic clan al-Karadsa, who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, for inciting the violence.
Egyptian human rights groups denounced the barbaric attack, blaming the government for discriminating against Muslims and Christians as far as building places of worship are concerned. They strongly called for a unified law for building places of worship.
