Politics - U.S. Newswire Press Releases
U.S. Copts Association: 3,000 Egyptian Copts Protest Mubarak's Neglect of Coptic Persecution
Mon Dec 6,12:40 PM ET
To: National Desk
Contact: Susan Joy Bishai of U.S. Copts Association, 202-737-3660
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a release of the U.S. Copts Association:
A Coptic priest's wife has been abducted by Muslim extremists, prompting nation-wide demonstrations by more than 3,000 Copts in various parts of Egypt. The demonstrators-including the clergyman and fifty hunger-strikers-have denounced President Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites)'s neglect of the recent escalation in anti-Coptic hate crimes.
3,000 Coptic demonstrators in Cairo, el-Minia, el-Behara and Assiut provinces gathered on December 5 and 6, 2004 to protest the abduction and forced conversion to Islam of Wafaa Constantine, the wife of a Coptic priest. Demonstrators further protested President Mubarak's inattention to Coptic pleas for protection from government persecution. The on-going two-day protest is a response to the predominantly Muslim Egyptian government's sanction of anti-Coptic hate crimes such as arson, torture, murder, and the abduction, rape, and forced conversion of young Coptic women. Although Egypt's native Christian Copts- numbering between 12-15 million and constituting approximately 15 percent of Egypt's population-have long been targets for Muslim extremists, a recent rise in anti-Coptic sentiment has prompted an escalation in violence against Copts.
Recent crimes denounced by demonstrators include mob violence in the village of Mankateen (Samalout province). On Friday, December 3, 2004, 5,000 Muslim villagers stormed and set
to a building housing a Coptic prayer room. The mob then swept through the village, looting and burning Coptic homes and businesses, destroying a Coptic priest's car, and injuring several Copts in the process. The mob was prompted by the announcement that President Mubarak had once again refused Mankateens' Coptic community their request to build a church.
Other crimes protested by the Coptic community include the alarming rise in the kidnapping, rape, and forced conversion of young Coptic women such as 19-year old Manal Gurguis Abd El Malak, whose kidnappers have yet to face justice due to discriminatory police neglect. Even high-ranking officials such as Assiut province's National Democratic Party Leader Mohamed Abd El Mohsen Saleh have been implicated by the national media in the kidnappings and forced conversions of several young Coptic women; President Mubarak has censured neither Saleh nor other officials implicated in similar crimes.
In a letter to President Bush (news - web sites), Michael Meunier, president of the U.S. Copts Association, appealed for Bush's immediate intervention with President Mubarak on behalf of Egypt's persecuted Copts. "Mubarak's regime has not only ignored, but in many cases contributed to the alarming increase in anti-Coptic violence," said Meunier. "Only President Bush's personal intervention can help prevent the escalation of these hate crimes into full-fledged cultural genocide."
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The U.S. Copts Association, founded in 1996 and based in Washington D.C., advocates for democracy, religious freedom, and human rights in Egypt. The Association represents over 700,000 Egyptian Christians in the United States.
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