WATANI International
22 March 2011
The town of Qena in Upper Egypt has become the first place in Egypt where Islamic hodoud (specific physical penalties for certain crimes) are applied, apparently against Copts.
The young Copt Ayman Nour Mitry, 35, from Qena, owns two flats in a building in the district of Masakin Othman, which he rents out. He rent a flat to a policeman called Khaled al-Sioufi, and the other to two young sisters Abeer and Sabrine Seif al-Nasr from Aswan.
Lately, the Salafi Muslims in Qena began harassing Mitry for allowing two women to live alone in his flat, and asked him to have them evicted. Asfour Wahib, Mitry’s lawyer, told Watani that Mitry asked the women to leave the flat, which they did. A couple of days later, on Sunday 20 March, Mitry received a phone call from Sioufi who lives next door to the flat the women used to occupy, saying that the flat was on fire. Mitry rushed there and put out the fire, but several salafi men attacked him, accused him of having had an affair with one of the women, and issued their judgement that the hadd (plural, hodoud) had to be applied. Using a knife, they cut his right ear, injured his left, and caused a 10-cm long cut in his neck. They went downstairs and put his car on fire. Then they called the police and informed them they had applied the hadd against Mitry.
In the meantime, they had an anonymous woman call Sabrine and tell her that her furniture has been thrown in the street, so she hastened to the scene of the incident. Once there, the Salafi men assaulted her and beat her until the police rushed to the scene. They caught Mitry then later moved him to the hospital where he lies in a critical condition. They also caught the young woman, who denied having had any affair with Mitry, and a claim was filed with the public prosecution. But, according to Wahib, no salafi was caught.
In the wake of the incident that left the Copts in Qena terrified, Anba Kirollos, Bishop of Nag Hammadi called on the Military Council to put an end to bullying under the name of religion, lest this sectarian behaviour be mimicked in other regions. Intellectuals, rights activists and Copts also called upon the Military council to take strict measures against the occurrence of similar incidents, and to bring justice to the recent case.
