Editor in Chief
Youssef Sidhom
Watani
عربى English French
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Watani
ع Fr

Copts attacked for alleged disdain of Islam

26 May, 2015 - (12:47 PM)
0 0

Girgis Waheeb

Copts attacked for alleged disdain of Islam
8
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

 

A number of radical Muslim youth waged an attack against the homes of Copts in the village of Kafr Darwish, in Fashn, Beni Sweif Sunday evening. They hurled stones and Molotov explosives at Coptic-owned homes; more than 10 houses were torched and damaged. A car owned by the Copt Malak Youakim Ayad was smashed. A number of Muslim youth helped the Copts defend their homes against the assailants, and the police moved to swiftly contain the matter.

The attack came after it was rumoured that the Copt Ayman Youssef whose home village is Kafr Darwish but currently works in Jordan posted on his Facebook account cartoons offensive to the Prophet Mohamed. Youssef is illiterate.

A conciliation session was quickly held by the local elders and security staff at the Fashn police station. It was attended by security representatives, Muslim and Christian clergy and representatives of the village Muslim and Christian families. It was decided that Youssef’s family should leave the village in order for matters to calm down.

 

A week ago, a young man in another Beni Sweif village was accused of disdaining Islam and is being prosecuted. The 18-year-old Maher Fayez Habib from Mayana was said to have posted material criticising Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, and Muslims on his Facebook page. Hoping to avert consequent attacks against the village Copts, the village Muslim and Coptic elders held an unofficial gathering Saturday 16 May at the Ahnasia police station during which the Copts apologised for the insult to Islam, and it was decided that the Habib family should leave the village temporarily till matters calm down and justice is served. And last April four Coptic teenage students from the village of Nassriya in Minya, Upper Egypt were accused, together with a young Coptic teacher, of deriding Islam because they poked fun at the beheading of Christians by IS in Libya. The teenager and the teacher are all being prosecuted.

 

According to Ishaq Ibrahim of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a rights group, cases of deriding Islam have risen drastically following the Arab Spring uprising in January 2011. Defendants do not usually get fair trials since the penal code is not well-defined on such charges, Ibrahim says, and also because the fundamentalists terrorise the judges and the courts.

Lawyers admit that accusing Christians of religious contempt on the basis of weak evidence has become commonplace, revealing a serious flaw in Egyptian society and exhibiting a flagrant breach of international law and international human rights treaties.

 

Watani International

26 May 2015

Comments

comments

Tags: Beni-SweifCoptsdisdain of IslamEgyptFashnKafr Darwish

Related Posts

Public prosecutor appeals acquittal of men charged with stripping elderly Coptic woman in al-Karm
Coptic Affairs

Public prosecutor appeals acquittal of men charged with stripping elderly Coptic woman in al-Karm

January 11, 2021
Public prosecutor looks to appeal acquittal of men charged with stripping elderly Coptic woman in al-Karm
Coptic Affairs

Public prosecutor looks to appeal acquittal of men charged with stripping elderly Coptic woman in al-Karm

December 20, 2020
Copt stabbed to death, two injured in hate crime in al-Alexandria
Crime

Copt stabbed to death, two injured in hate crime in al-Alexandria

December 14, 2020
More Muslim hostilities against al-Barsha Copts
main

More Muslim hostilities against al-Barsha Copts

December 1, 2020
Attack against Barsha Copts on rumour of insulting Prophet of Islam
main

Attack against Barsha Copts on rumour of insulting Prophet of Islam

November 27, 2020
Death sentence for priest killer final
Crime

Death sentence for priest killer final

November 15, 2020

Editorial

Tuk tuk and minivan: Issues carried into 2021

More

MOST READ

Land of sad oranges
Books

Land of sad oranges

December 15, 2011
0

WATANI InternationalMay 2009 / 12 July 2009  The Palestinian town of Jaffa is famous for its delicious oranges. The peel is...

Read more
Epiphany: Down memory lane

Epiphany: Down memory lane

January 19, 2020
Happy Epiphany

Happy Epiphany

January 20, 2016
First point on Holy Family trail in Egypt officially opened: Where Mother Mary baked

First point on Holy Family trail in Egypt officially opened: Where Mother Mary baked

January 20, 2021
Funeral for Coptic woman killed by her husband in Sydney

Funeral for Coptic woman killed by her husband in Sydney

May 26, 2019

Features

Decrease in COVID-19 figures prompts partial reopening in Coptic churches
Coptic Affairs

Decrease in COVID-19 figures prompts partial reopening in Coptic churches

January 26, 2021
0

As of Sunday 31 January 2021, Masses will resume in the Coptic Orthodox parishes of Cairo and Alexandria, following their...

Read more
Watani started as an Egyptian weekly Sunday newspaper published in Cairo. The word Watani is Arabic for “My Homeland”. The paper was founded in 1958 by the prominent Copt Antoun Sidhom (1915 – 1995), who strove for the establishment of a civil, democratic society in Egypt, where all Egyptians would enjoy full citizenship rights regardless of their religious denomination. To this day when Watani is published as a weekly paper and an online news site, the objective remains the same. Those in charge of Watani view this role as a patriotic all-Egyptian vocation. Special attention is given to shedding light on Coptic culture and tradition as authentically Egyptian, this being a topic largely disregarded or little-understood by Egypt’s media. Watani is deeply dedicated to offer its readers high quality, extensive, objective, credible and well-researched media coverage, with special focus on Coptic issues, culture, heritage, and contribution to Egyptian society.
-----------------------------------------------------------

27 Abdel Khalek Tharwat st, Downtown, Abdeen,Cairo

00202-23927201

00202-23935946

 [email protected]

      

categories

  • News
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Egypt – Arab Spring
  • Coptic Affairs
  • Features
  • Watani Special Features

Recent Posts

  • Decrease in COVID-19 figures prompts partial reopening in Coptic churches
  • Coronavirus vaccination starts in Egypt
  • Egyptian artist awarded gold medal in Moscow
  • “Spend winter in Egypt”
  • Tuk tuk and minivan: Issues carried into 2021
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • Culture
  • Egypt – Arab Spring
  • Coptic Affairs
  • Features
  • Watani Special Features

Powered BY 3A Digital.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Accidents
    • Crime
    • Diplomatic briefcase
    • NewsLine
    • Outside Cairo
    • Special Occasions
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • International media
    • Reader`s Corner
    • Opinion
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • International Politics
    • Islamisation Politics
    • National Affairs
    • Parliament
    • Politics
    • Protests
    • Rights
    • Terrorism
  • Culture
    • Antiquity
    • Art
    • Books
    • Culture
    • Drama
    • Egyptology
    • Festivals
    • Films
    • Heritage
    • Islamisation Culture
    • Media
    • Museums
    • Music
    • TV
  • Coptic
    • Church Affairs
    • Coptic Affairs
    • Coptic Culture
    • Copts in the Media
    • Coptology
    • Copts Abroad
    • Religious
      • P. Shenouda: Bible Study
    • Sectarian
    • Inter-religious
    • Holy Family
  • Features
    • Counselling Corner
    • features
    • Economy
      • Business
    • Education
    • Social Issues
      • Behaviour
      • Mothers Day
    • Health
    • Environment
    • Humour
    • In memorial
    • Interviews
    • Nile
    • Profile
    • Special needs
    • Sports
    • Technology
    • Tourism
    • Wars
    • Women
    • Youth
  • Watani Special Features
    • Egypt – Arab Spring
      • 25 January Revolution
      • 25 Jan revolution, one year on
      • Egypt post-30 June
    • Watani Milestones
      • 10 years Watani International
      • Watani Jubilee
    • Pope Shenouda
    • Pope Tawadros
    • Watani Forum

Powered BY 3A Digital.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In