Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi Launches MB Candidate Muhammad Mursi's Campaign: Mursi Will Restore the "United States of the Arabs" with Jerusalem as Its Capital
Egypt's Coptic Christians complained of discrimination under Hosni Mubarak but fear it may get worse if an Islamist takes his place in next week's presidential election.
Long-suppressed Islamists already dominate parliament. Islamist contenders for the presidency say Christians, who form about a tenth of Egypt's 82 million mostly Muslim people, will not be sidelined, but mistrustful Copts will not vote for them.
The single biggest Coptic grievance and the source of most sectarian violence in Egypt is legislation that makes it easy to build a mosque but hard to construct or even repair a church.
An Egyptian court in Minya sentenced, on May 14, a Muslim man to death for the killing and wounding of six Christians. Judge Mahmoud Salama pronounced the sentenced against 29-year-old policeman Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher. During its previous session, the court had referred the case to the Egyptian Grand Mufti, as is usual with a death penalty verdict, who supported the court's decision. Yesterday's court session was to pronounce the verdict.
In December, 2010 Abdel-Zaher, who worked as a policeman at the Bani Mazar police investigations unit, went on a train bound for Cairo from Assiut in the upper Egyptian town of Samalut and fired his gun at six Copts after chanting "Allahu Akbar".
The Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah’s “After the Battle” is set in the heart of Cairo, his home ground. The story is about a clash between men on horseback and camels and young demonstrators in Tahrir Square on Feb. 2, 2011, during Egypt’s rebellion. The Battle of the Camels was a set-up by President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a paid provocation to quell the revolution.
Near the rock-strewn scene of a bloody anti-army protest, Islamist, liberal and other politicians sat with ruling generals this month to haggle over Egypt's future after its first presidential vote since Hosni Mubarak's fall.
At stake in the Defense Ministry meeting, held just hours after 11 people were killed in another flare-up marring Egypt's transition to democracy, was who would write a new constitution and what powers would Mubarak's successor have.
No clarity has emerged.
When voting starts on May 23 and 24 in a presidential race that broadly pits Islamists against men who at one time or another served under Mubarak, Egyptians still won't know the next head of state's permanent job description.
Coptic Solidarity is a U.S. public charity organization under section 501 (C) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are deductible under Section 170 of the Code.
By iNowD Web Design
Coptic Solidarity Annual Conference
The next Annual Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. on June 28-30, 2012.
Please register as soon as possible register now