By Raymond Ibrahim –
The hidden reality of systemic discrimination against Egypt’s Christians
In a recent article (followed by a livestream), we witnessed the head coach of Egypt’s soccer team engage in grand irony: after losing to Argentina, Hossam Hassan complained that the game was rigged, and expressed dismay that there is international discrimination “even in soccer, even in sports?”
Meanwhile, as Coptic Solidarity has repeatedly reported (here, here, and here), and as Aid to the Church in Need noted in a February 2022 report,
Christians make up around 15 percent of the population of Egypt and are as football-crazy as their Muslim neighbours, but there is not a single Copt in the national team….There are no official statistics on the number of Copts in Egypt, but estimates vary between 10 percent and 20 percent. … The fact that no Copts, of any denomination, are represented in top-level football, and therefore in the national team, stings.
But it gets worse: the discrimination Egypt’s Christians face in soccer is the mere tip of an ugly iceberg of discrimination they face all throughout society.
The best way to demonstrate this is by comparing Coptic Christian experiences in Egypt with African American experiences in the United States. After all, Egypt’s Christians and America’s blacks have something in common: both groups account for roughly 15 percent of their nations’ populations.
And that is where their similarities end.
former president, Barack Obama, and former Vice President Kamala. Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces, and later became Secretary of State. He was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice. Charles Quinton Brown Jr was also Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, and Lloyd Austin was Secretary of Defense.
Above and beyond these few examples, there are many black senators, governors, and congressmen; successful black CEOs, physicians, scientists, and professors; and, of course, black athletes.
Most notably in the media—from big budget Hollywood to local advertisements—blacks appear to be overly represented than their respective population might warrant.
Now compare and contrast this with Christians in Egypt.
Again, despite being nearly 15 percent of Muslim Egypt’s population, Christians are nowhere to be found in any of that nation’s positions of leadership. Consider a few statistics:
On Jan. 17, 2023, Presidential Decree #12 was announced in Egypt. It listed 100 newly appointed vice-presidents of the State Council. Only one of them was a Christian. As Coptic Solidarity observed then, “This is one more proof—if proof was needed—that severe and systemic discrimination against Egypt’s indigenous Christian Copts is a state policy, sanctioned by the President personally.”
A few months earlier, in September 2022, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued several other presidential decrees for the appointment of new deputy prosecutors. Out of 516 hires, a paltry five—meaning less than 1 percent—were Christians. (Around the same time the Egyptian embassy in Washington D.C. boasted of Sisi’s efforts to ensure “meritocracy in civil service.”)
One month before that, in August 2022, the president of Cairo University assigned 31 new directors, deputy directors, managers, and researchers to head a number of departments, including those of agriculture, medicine, engineering, nursing, dentistry, statistical research, and African Studies. Not a single one of them was Christian. All were Muslim.
Before that, in March 2022, 98 female judges took the legal oath in preparation for assuming judicial roles in Egypt’s State Council. This was considered a major and unprecedented advancement. Since its inception 75 years earlier, not a single woman had sat on the podium of the State Council court—and now 98 were set to.
Yet not one of them was a Christian—again, despite the fact that the Copts account for between 15 percent of Egypt’s population, suggesting that at the very least 14 of the 98 should have, for proper representation, been Christian.
The list of areas where Egypt’s Christians hit an invisible (or rather very visible) ceiling of between 0-2 percent of total hires is long. It goes from the military to the police, from academia to local governance, from public companies to media.
Incidentally, all of this is a reflection of the growing radicalization of Egypt. After all, even by Egypt’s “modest” standards, in the few tumultuous but “liberal” decades preceding the Free Officers’ coup (the “1952 Revolution”), it was possible for Christians to occupy posts such as Foreign Minister, Minister of Defense, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the Parliament.
Such things are unimaginable under the current regime, which is a de-facto alliance between the military and Islamists (despite all pretense otherwise).
In short, and to get a better idea of the ongoing diminution of Christian representation in Egypt, imagine for a moment if blacks, who make up 13.6 percent of America, held 0 percent of all important and prestigious positions in the nation, including in media, and between 0-2 percent of virtually every other decent job.
What would be said of the U.S.—and how would its progressives howl?
Meanwhile, little is said of Egypt, and no one but its Christians howl (in an echo chamber).
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