WATANI International
9 October 2011
The problem of Mar-Girgis (St George) church in the village Merinab, in Edfu, Aswan, which I tackled in detail on 18 September, blew off last week. Flagrant incitement by the nearby mosque imam; and suspicious, appeasing non-action on the part of the local civil and security officials; induced a mob of extremist Muslims to attack the newly built church. The mob demolished the church’s concrete domes and beams, and a number of columns. They torched what remained of the building and assaulted three neighbouring homes owned by Copts.
Three weeks ago, with the problem yet in its early stages, I warned that terrorism was growing more brutal by the day owing to the detrimental official policy of bowing to terrorist pressure under the pretext of fending off evil. In the process, the prestige of the State and the rule of law are compromised; all too reasonable then that extremists turn even more insolent and mighty, more persistent in challenging the rule of law.
Today the problem has gained tragic proportions. Last week’s appalling events led to a new turn at which the authorities conceded their power to the terrorists and, in an effort to save face, justified the terrorist crimes and echoed their baseless arguments. At this point the authorities moved from submission to complicity, becoming partners in the crime, as proved by the disclosures of Copts close to the scene of the crime. The security authorities arranged for the infamous ‘reconciliation sessions’ one after the other. The minutes of these sessions expose how the security authorities whole-heartedly and congruently took the side of the Muslim extremists, justifying and defending them. The flagrant bias reached the point where the Copts were forced to accept the extremists’ dictates under the pretext of evading bloodshed, and under the threat that no security protection would be afforded the Copts otherwise. The bleak, humiliating reconciliation sessions lost the minimal semblance of neutrality. In the past, the security authorities used to take a position somewhere in the middle between the victim and offender. In the Merinab case there were but two sides to the reconciliation: the offenders and security officials on one side, and the finished-off victims on the other. It was not only the Merinab Copts who had been finished off however, it was also the rule of law, citizenship rights, freedom of worship and State authority.
Official complicity with the terrorists reached its zenith when, in the aftermath of the crime, Aswan governor Mustafa al-Sayed gave the media a deluge of statements that countered reality, distorted the facts and misled the public. The governor said he had not the slightest idea that the problem in Merinab concerned a church. He denied the existence of a church in the first place and claimed the case concerned a “guesthouse’” He downplayed the criminal destruction, burning, and terrorising Copts; he reduced the assault to a “limited fire at a wood shed”. He never referred to the ‘church’ the licence of which he had himself signed. It did not disturb him one whit that terrorists had seized power in his governorate, municipal authorities, building department, or security apparatus. He persisted in legitimising the terrorist attack by offering a fake account of the events then saving face by claiming there had been a contravention in the church building’s height. Instead of condemning the terrorists, he lashed out at the Copts and their “alleged church” as though he knew nothing about the century-old church for which he had issued a restoration licence a year ago, and which read as follows:
“Licence for the establishment of a ground floor, a loft, and domes in accordance with the height allowed by the local building regulations. The reinforced concrete structural building is 12.9 x 19.2 metres. The eastern facade is 12.9 metres long and overlooks a street 5.5 metres wide, to be completed with 0.50 metres from the opposite building in accordance with provisions of law no. 119, issued in 2008. The southern facade is 19.20 metres long. It overlooks a passage 5 metres wide. The ground floor consists of a staircase, the church nave, and the sanctuary. The first floor includes a staircase and a women’s terrace above which there are domes in accordance with the data and drawings submitted with the application and certified and documented by this licence. The law, its executive regulations, relevant codes, decisions and specifications should apply.”
Self-evidently, the licence concerns a church, since no rational, non-fanatic, well-intentioned individual can confuse a “church nave and sanctuary” with a “guesthouse”. If we go beyond the incident itself, however, to the broader question of the Copts’ constitutional right to worship, perform religious rites, build churches freely without official hurdles, and be protected by the relevant authorities, we will find that these rights openly violated by authorities allied to ever-more-ferocious terrorists.