In the village of Sheikh Qassem in Abul-Matamir west of the Nile Delta, some 2000 Muslim villagers used bulldozers to pull down a two-storey house owned by the Copt Sharaqa Gadallah on the pretext that he intended to turn it into a church. Gadallah had completed building his house
In the village of Sheikh Qassem in Abul-Matamir west of the Nile Delta, some 2000 Muslim villagers used bulldozers to pull down a two-storey house owned by the Copt Sharaqa Gadallah on the pretext that he intended to turn it into a church. Gadallah had completed building his house, the ground floor of which included space for shops while the first floor was residential, two months ago.
Ghali Iskandar, a lawyer who represents the Coptic Church in the Beheira region where Abul-Matamir lies, told Watani that Gadallah was beaten up and thrown out of his house while the Muslim hardliners demolished it to the ground, to cries of Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) after evening prayers. The security authorities did nothing to defend Gadallah.
The village of Sheikh Qassem is home to only two Coptic families from among some 10,000 population, so it makes no sense whatsoever, Mr Iskandar said, that Gadallah##s house could have been turned into a church.
And in the village of Maasaret Haggag in Beni Mazaar, Minya, in Upper Egypt, construction work to renovate a three-storey dilapidated building owned by the Church and used as a community service centre was halted by order of the security authorities. The Muslim villagers had submitted complaints that they wanted no Church-owned building there. Even though the renovation work was fully licensed by the relevant authorities, it was halted owing to “security reasons”.
WATANI International
24 August 2012
