Church attacked in Mit Bashar

Peace now reigns in the village of Mit Bashar, Zaqaziq, East of the Delta, after security and military forces were able to contain what threatened to blow into a full-scale sectarian tragedy.

The story began with rumours circulating that Church had abducted and was forcefully holding a young Coptic woman who wished to convert to Islam at the Mar-Girgis (St George) church in the village.

Father Girgis Gamil of the church of the Holy Virgin in the village, told Watani that Khalil Ibrahim had converted to Islam three years ago, married a Muslim village woman, and deserted his Coptic wife and children. His eldest daughter was married, but his two other teenage children lived with their mother. Three months ago, Ibrahim’s 16 year-old daughter Rania, went to visit her father and spent three months with him. Her mother says that Rania fled her father’s house two days ago, claiming that he tried to force her to marry a Muslim man against her will. Trying to clear himself, Ibrahim claimed that the Church kidnapped and held his daughter, which led some 20,000 angry Muslims to gather around the village church, crying against Copts, hurling stones at the church and the priest’s home, and trying to demolish the church walls. The church façade was destroyed as well as two Coptic owned cars.

The village Muslims elders, its mosque imams as well as the security apparatus and the Army were able to contain the crowd and to protect the church from the angry mob, said Fr Girgis to Watani. “My Muslim neighbours stood against those who were trying to attack my home, and protected my family until the Army’s armoured vehicles arrived and confronted the assailants,” he said. He added that the security apparatus had tracked down Rania and found her in Cairo with her uncle’s family, and handed her over to the Zaqaziq Security Head. Rania denied she had been abducted by the Church.

A brief respite followed but, later in the evening, the angry mob once more gathered and attacked the church and the Coptic homes. The radical crowd kept pelting the church and the security and military forces with stones and Molotov cocktails; the security forces retaliated with tear gas. The church was full of Copts who had come in earlier to defend it. As part of the church wall fell, they sent out terrified calls for help especially, according to Milad Wahib who was with the congregation inside the church, the crowd outside threatened to burn the church and all who were inside it.

The mobbing crowd outside demanded that Fr Girgis should leave the village, which Fr Girgis said was entirely unreasonable, since the Church had nothing to do with Rania’s disappearance or re-appearance.

Additional security and military forces and supplies were sent to the village to be able to confront the violence. Coptic eyewitnesses Marco Youssef and Sobhy Gawish told Watani that, this together with the fact that the moderate village Muslims had formed human shields around the church and Coptic homes for protection, made the Copts feel safer.

Mosque imams voices were heard through microphones all over the village calling on the crowd to stop their violence which was described as anti-Islamic, and go home to protect their Coptic neighbours.

Sharqiya governor Azazi Ali Azazi was on al-Hayat satellite TV channel in the evening, saying that it was not acceptable that some “who claimed to be religious” should wage such an attack against a “house of God”. He said he would do everything in his power to defend the church, and that those who waged the attack would be prosecuted on criminal charges.

Even though peace later reigned and matters were brought under control, no culprit was caught.