Two reconciliation sessions, one held earlier this month and the other scheduled for next week, may act as case studies for the manner in which local politicians and security authorities put an end to disputes or conflicts that arise between Muslims and Copts. The details may be different between both cases, but the elements common between them and the pressure applied on the Copts is unmistakable. A reading of the machinations which finally led to ‘reconciliation’ is a veritable eye-opener.
The victims-turned-offenders
Last July the newly-built church in the village of Ezbet Basilious in Beni-Mazar, Minya, Upper Egypt was torched. The two sole eyewitnesses were 27-year-old Fulla Ramzy Asaad and her 80-year-old mother-in-law, since the three Muslim men who Assaad says torched the church had accessed it through a backdoor in a courtyard of the Assaad home. Even though the police caught the three Muslims—Ahmed Fuli, Rabie Taha, and Eid Sayed Ahmed—they also caught another Copt, Reda Gamal Huzayin, 29, when Muslim witnesses testified that they saw him standing in the vicinity of the burning church. Huzayin had a strong alibi and was nowhere near the church when the fire erupted, yet he was charged with setting it aflame. Assaad was charged with being his accomplice, which practically invalidated her testimony.
The story of the church goes back to the 1970s when the villagers of Ezbet Basilious began erecting a church but, throughout some 35 years, could not get the authorities to license it. This goes with the standard complaint by Copts that the licensing process usually extends for years on end, after which the license may yet be withheld no matter how much the community needs a church.
In 2001 the villagers renovated an old building, donated by the Assaad family, for use as a church. This year they were informed by the security authorities that the licence was finally near being issued, and were given verbal permission to conduct prayers. On 7 March 2009 Anba Athanasius, Bishop of Beni Mazar, held the consecration rituals of the church, but the security officials closed it on the pretext that the licensing documents were yet pending.
In July the church was burnt. The ruined building was placed under heightened security and, ever since, no Coptic cleric was allowed to set foot in the village, even to visit the sick or needy.
The price
To date the report of the criminal laboratory, whose responsibility is to investigate the fire, has not been submitted to the prosecutor office. All the suspects were released on bail.
Earlier this month a reconciliation session was held at the home of one of the Muslim village elders, Ahmed Zaki Darbela. Participating were Muslim and Coptic elders in the village, clerics from both sides, local politicians and security officials. They all signed a document which confirmed compassion and goodwill between them, stressed the right of each side to freely conduct religious rites provided security clearance and all necessary permits are available, and admitted that both parties are accusing no-one in particular of arson and are trusting the investigation of the matter to the police.
Mohamed Abdel-Azim, professor of Islamic studies and one of the persons who were active in bringing about the reconciliation, said that Coptic demands to rebuild the ruined church awaits a security decision. “The security authorities had already given their permission and the church had been consecrated; our document is merely to send the message that we are all for the church in the village,” he said.
Adel Shehata, the church’s lawyer, said that the reconciliation has not dissipated the sectarian tension in the village, but has definitely calmed down matters. It may, moreover, lead to a change in the testimony of the witnesses, thereby allowing the prosecution to drop the charges against all the suspects. This, of course, entails setting the real culprits free—a price paid for setting the innocent free.
Last July the lawyers representing the Copts told Watani that the charges against Asaad and Huzayin were but the most recent of the by-now customary oppressive ploys used by the security officials to turn the Coptic victims into alleged attackers, thereby twisting the arm of the Coptic community into giving up basic citizenship rights.
Vendetta
The case of the village Higaza Qibli in Qena, Upper Egypt differs from Ezbet Basilious in that it began as no sectarian issue but ended as one.
The story began in 2004 with the killing of Mohamed Saïd Ibrahim, 58, at the hands of the Copts from the local Soliman clan following a fight that took place in the village marketplace. At the time three Copts were caught and brought to trial for manslaughter; they were convicted and spent time in prison till 2006. In the meantime all attempts by the Solimans and the local elders and officials to reconcile with the Ibrahims failed. The police therefore forced 15 Coptic families to leave the village and relocate in Aswan but, earlier this year, some of these families returned to Higaza.
Last April the Muslims avenged the blood of their dead when they shot 22-year-old Hedra Soliman as he left the village church following the Midnight Mass that celebrated Easter. Four Muslims in a passing car opened fire on the congregation, killing Soliman and 24-year-old Amir Stephanous who happened to be standing beside him, and seriously injuring Samir Gad al-Rub, 37. The police caught Mustafa Mohamed Saïd, 23, Abdel-Qader Mohamed Ibrahim, 30, and three others. They are still detained but their case has not been referred to court.
The funeral service for Stephanous, who is a member of the Coptic Catholic Church, had to be conducted in the courtyard of the Fransiscan School in the village since the Coptic Catholic church in the village was closed down while in the process of restoration in 1993 and has not been opened since.
No blood money
The Solimans and the Stephanouses refused to accept condolences for their dead, meaning the vendetta was ongoing. Security in Higaza Qibli was heavily tightened in anticipation of further violence, and attempts at reconciling the families went on at a frantic rate.
When the local officials approached Stephanous Tawfiq, the father of Amir, to persuade him to reconcile he first refused then decided to accept reconciliation if the blood money he receives would go towards completing the renovation of the Catholic church and allowing it to open. His demand was rejected since, he was told, his son had been killed by accident and not in the vendetta, so he was entitled to no blood money. He then demanded that the killers’ families would be made to leave the village and relocate somewhere else, but again his request was rejected. Finally, the local authorities decided to tempt him with a job offer—Stephanous is a poor man with no fixed income—at the local youth centre. This offer, coupled with the news that the Solimans had accepted to reconcile with the Ibrahims, led him to accept.
The matter became more complicated when, some ten days ago, Stephanous’s daughter Amal disappeared. Stephanous accused a Muslim neighbour, 30-year-old Ali Negm, of abducting his daughter. Negm was caught and admitted his crime but, unless the police finds Amal, Stephanous does not intend to go on with the reconciliation which is scheduled for next week. “I lost my son, and now it’s my daughter,” the bereaved father said.
Under siege
As to the Solimans, the police used a different technique to force them into reconciling. Hedra’s brother Anwar Adeeb told Watani that they made no demands in exchange for reconciliation. “All we wanted,” Adeeb said, “Was to put an end to the intolerable pressure which was being exerted by the security authorities upon us.
“The entire family—some 25 men, women and children, he said, were placed under what amounted to house arrest in a small mud brick house which we own on the outskirts of the village and which we used to stable our farm animals. The pretext was that our presence in our home in the village posed a threat since it was close to the killers’ house. A carpentry workshop we own was closed. We were not allowed to leave the place; when a brother of mine fell sick I was only allowed to take him to the hospital at Luxor after strenuous negotiations with the security officials, and then it was only in the company of two police detectives. Since we could not do any work, we were deprived of our livelihood. If it weren’t for a meagre sum sent to us by a brother who works in Kuwait, I don’t know how we could have survived. We had no option but to reconcile.”
Adeeb, however, insisted that the reconciliation did not involve giving up their legal right to have the killers prosecuted. As to the pressure they were subjected to in order to give up the vendetta, the question begs an answer why such pressure could not be exerted on the Muslim Ibrahims in 2004.