EGYPT: Church Building Sparks Strife

By Adam Morrow Reprint | | Print |

Adam Morrow

CAIRO, Jan 31 2006 (IPS) - Sectarian tension has risen again in Egypt after Muslims and Coptic Christians clashed over the historically sensitive issue of church building earlier this month.

Violence erupted “after a number of Copts (Christians from the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt) in the village of Udaysat attempted to transform a guesthouse into a church…without obtaining construction permits,” pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Jan.20. “This had the effect of agitating the Muslims, who set light to grass and shrubs near the guesthouse, which spread to nearby homes.”

Security forces intervened after fighting broke out in the incident in Udaysat village, 500 km south of Cairo, media reported. A Christian resident of the village died two days later from injuries. Fourteen people, including four policemen, were injured. According to government sources, 30 people – both Muslim and Christian – were arrested. An official investigation was announced.

Interfaith relations have traditionally been peaceful in this majority-Muslim country, where Christians are estimated to represent between 10 and 20 percent of the population. But there have been periodic outbreaks of sectarian violence, particularly in upper Egypt.

“Sectarian tension remains a very sensitive subject,” Mohamed Said, deputy director of the state-run Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS. “In fact, it’s starting to become a scar on the national psyche. People are starting to worry about it.”

Christian-Muslim hostility erupted most dramatically in 2000 in the southern village Al-Kusheh, when 20 people were killed during armed clashes between the two sides. The site of the confrontation was later renamed Dar Al-Salaam, ‘City of Peace’.

Official regulations governing church building have long provoked Christian reactions. In January last year, police arrested 80 people in the Upper Egyptian governorate Minya, 250 km south of Cairo, after a round of sectarian clashes left one Muslim resident dead. Then, too, violence erupted when a number of Christians attempting to build a church without official permission were confronted by local Muslims.

A month earlier, news that the wife of a Coptic priest had been forced to convert to Islam triggered massive riots among Copts who held angry demonstrations at Cairo’s Orthodox Cathedral. At that time, 55 people were injured and 34 Christian demonstrators arrested. Again, in October last year, riots erupted outside a church in the Mediterranean port city Alexandria, leaving three dead and scores injured. According to official accounts, about 5,000 Muslims protested after reports appeared in the local press about a play – supposedly enacted in the church two years earlier – considered offensive to Islam. Security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets after some protestors threw stones at the church and damaged nearby storefronts.

According to Said, incidents of sectarian discord are becoming increasingly common. “We’ve observed a greater frequency and intensity of religious strife – tensions between Coptic and Muslim communities – in different parts of the country.” Said attributed the outbursts to “various issues” such as “rumours of forced conversions.”

Many Copts complain that official discrimination against Christians in Egypt is rife, pointing to the under-representation of Copts in the government, army and police. “For every hundred local officers, maybe one of them is Christian,” a Copt from the southern Assiut province was quoted as saying in the local media after the Minya incident. He said the local bureaucracy obstructs the building of churches, when mosques “can be built at the drop of a hat.”

Until recently, Christian communities seeking to build new churches had to obtain official permission from the President. Last month, a presidential decree gave local governors the authority to grant permission.

“As a piece of legislation, it certainly improves the situation,” Youssef Sidhoum, editor-in-chief of the Coptic-oriented weekly Al-Watani told IPS.. “But the latest incident proves the security apparatus still has a strong hand in these matters, which tends to ruin any positive legislation that is issued.”

The new decree does not necessarily speed up the application process for church building, he said. “Security still has to give its approval before licenses can be granted.”

According to the Al-Ahram Centre’s Said, Coptic authorities are split on the issue of the decree’s efficacy. “Some say it will ease the process and clear impediments to church building. But others ask why they should presume that local governors will be any more sympathetic to church building than the President.”

Sidhoum says irresponsible treatment of the issue by the international media has aggravated the situation. “The media covering these events, especially the western media, certainly draws a reaction here,” he said. “I myself wouldn’t encourage that – this is no strategy for fighting for citizens’ rights.”