BY: MONIR DAWOUD, MD
THE PRESENT WAVE OF PERSECUTION:
Many Copts are facing severe attacks in different regions of Egypt. The terrorists, supported by the Egyptian government, raid the homes, endanger property and threaten the lives of innocent Christians. The latest atrocities include those of Altayeba township that belongs to Samalout City of Minya Governate; Al-Amireya of Cairo; the Coptic Twins Andrew and Mario of Alexandria; the murder of young Coptic Milad Ibrahim Farag; the unlawful detention of Hani Aziz, a Coptic writer, a blogger and a social worker who lives in the town of Nag Hammadi of Qena Governate;
Police torture of six Coptic youth, and illegally closing their Coffee shop in Port Said; Christian farmer that is barred from building his home and is living in a house without roof, doors or windows with his nine children and wife. That is beside the attacks on Abo-Fana monks who were forced to accept reconciling with the criminals under the threats of the Minya Governor. At all levels, there is discrimination against Copts. The subject can be broken down into several aspects as follows:
A) Killing Copts and looting their properties:
1)The Martyrdom of Joshua (Yashoue) of El-Tayeba, Samalout, Minya Oct. 3, 2008
The Martyr Joshua Gamal Nashed, 25 years old.
On Friday October 3rd, 2008, about 10:30 pm, a group of Muslims from El-Tayeba instigated a fight with a group of Muslims from a nearby El-Zakayebia Village and entered the lumber shop owned by Ayman Boushra Hanna, a Christian, who tried to prevent them from raiding his shop, but suddenly, both groups attacked him and looted the goods shouting “Allah Akbar” (God is Great). This plot was made to force him sell his building and shop to Muslims.
This town is inhibited by a majority of 85% Christians and 15% Muslims. Some Muslims wanted to buy the property for 200,000 Egyptian pounds (about $35,000.00) where the fair market value is above one million Egyptian pounds (above $105,000.00).
As he refused the offer, they made the plan to force him to accept the offer. They spread rumors that the shop caught fire and that led some Christian neighbors to run to help out. Copts went without weapons, not expecting the confrontation of heavily armed Muslims using machine guns! The situation became a real chaos, while the security forces assaulted the Christians allowing the Muslims to kill Joshua Gamal Nashed, 25 years old, who was shot at the right eye-brow by Gamal Rostom Abdel-Hameed, a young Muslim man who used his pistol as the martyr was passing in front of his house. The victim with other four wounded Christians was taken by their folks to the Hospital of Samalout, Minya. Joshua expired after 1.5 hours after his admission to the hospital. The wounded persons Philip Michael and Samuel Ramzi Mousa are still under treatment.
Security forces surrounded the Christians and used tear gas to disperse them and kept them locked in their homes. Police threatened them and arrested about sixty Copts and only eight Muslims whom they took to the police station in Samalout. The households of the victims are under intense police watch, surrounding and preventing them from getting out. All Christians are forbidden from getting out and arbitrary arrests of Copts are still going on.
The unwarranted arrest of Mr. Samy Sayed Greiss, a very prominent, rich, humble and peace-making old Christian man, saddened everyone in the community. He was released after spending a night in custody. This same noble man protected two young Muslim men as he kept them in his house and called a police officer to take them and lest the Christian youth hurt them.The town is still under curfew and police officers prevent any car to cross the bridge and charge the drivers 50 pounds on leaving and another fifty on coming back.
They confiscate drivers’ licenses and car registration of any privately owned vehicle. We received several calls from Christians under siege expressing the terror they live in and the fear of losing their lives as Muslims are moving freely in the streets and the security forces are protecting them and are acting against Christians in an apparent discriminatory way that proves severe persecution. A lawyer whose office is located in Samalout cannot leave el-Tayeba to go to his work and he is worried about the court scheduled cases for his clients. Coptic children are barred from attending schools while Muslim children go to the nearby town’s schools. In a call from a lady in USA to her father, an aged blind man, he informed her that food supply is running out and he could not go to see his doctor. It is a Christian community under siege.The father of the murdered Joshua is threatened by Governor Ahmed Diaa el-Din to accept 200,000.00 Egyptian pounds and drop the charges against his son’s killer and reconcile with the criminals! They bring the justice system to an early nomadic Arabian era.
They are forcing all the injured and their families to accept reconciliation instead of punishing the criminals. The Governor is putting pressure on the Orthodox and Evangelical communities to convince the father of the victim to receive condolences and reconciliation- a proposal which the father had repeatedly rejected. Muslims destroyed the house of Fr. Mikhail Kamel, the priest of the town Church. They burned two transportation cars belonging to Muftah Boushreida el-Omda, a Christian and cousin of the town’s Mayor.
They also destroyed, burned and looted the house of Mr. Eid Melik El-Ghataisy three days after the initial tragedy. They burned 10 acres of Sesame fields belonging to Mr. Hanna Abdel-Malek El-Omda. They burned fields of cotton and other corps belonging to Christians. The latest News: Burning the house of Mr. Ibrahim Gad-ElrabTadrous: How can a person or a group of people burn a house in the presence of about five thousands police men and security forces? Because it is a house that is owned by a Christian, all wicked forces will close their eyes or even share in the process!Now, look to the unjust justice where the prosecutors ordered 15 days extension for the detained Christians who are the victims to make equilibrium to the 8 Muslim killers and aggressors! Nobody knows what will happen to the Christians in this town. This may become another Kosheh’s Massacre (The Massacre of the Millennium) where 21 Copts were killed by Muslims in the first day of the Millennium by the Muslims supported by the security and police forces. All Court levels vindicated the criminals inspire of the witnesses!
2) Shameful unjust ruling of Minya Criminal Court favoring Khamis Eid Abdel-Hamid, a murderer Muslim who recognized and admitted killing young Coptic Milad Ibrahim Farag, "25” One year with stay (Suspended sentence)
Dr. Ihab, the victim’s lawyer said: It is a government made disaster for the Copts as the deadly recognized and admitted for crime and reconciliation does not mean punishment was abolished!!
Minya Criminal Court issued its ruling against the named Khamis Eid Abdel-Hamid for one year with stay (suspended sentence) for the murder of young Coptic Milad Ibrahim Farag, "25" years last June. This provision was that the case related to the defense of heritage Honor.
This provision has aroused the anger of the Copts and Egyptian intellectuals and thinkers as the non-punishment of imprisonment for the killer who recognize the crime and the absence of any condemnation of the killer means that the dead man had not been harassed or any of the women who inveigled the killer of the young man who forced him to a deserted area and stabbed him several times.
Dr. Ihab, the symbolic lawyer commented that the sentence is a disaster and waste of law and the right of society to the lack of legal deterrence in the same murder case and there to harm the victim. He pointed out that the police investigation report declared that the killer had beaten the man and death resulted from several stabbing wounds. Although suspicion of murder and advance planning of the crime and luring the victim to a deserted place, and was carrying a deadly weapon with him that proves bad intention. Lawyers were not able to attend any hearing due to the operative rule that suspended the record which had been taken by the Magistrate's Court to reduce the punishment to two years. The judge gave the murderer the right to be wrong despite the deadly recognized and admitted offense.
At the same time, there has been grief in the Coptic village "Dyfsh" following the operative rule. This provision means that Christians’ blood is cheap or has no value and that they second class citizens! The consequences of this provision will be consequences for killing Christians because everyone knew that their blood is as no one who killed a Copt have been punished.
In court: the accused was arm-in-arm with his hands, shouting victoriously and glorifying the bearded judge (Muslim Brotherhood Fashion). The killer was acquitted although he admitted and recognized his crime! This is the scales of justice in our country when the victim is a Copts B) Mubarak Regime destroys Christian Family Ties and Morals
1) EGYPT: COURT GIVES CHRISTIAN BOYS TO MUSLIM FATHER
Despite a fatwa from the Grand Mufti, Alexandria judge denies custody for mother.
ISTANBUL, October 2 (Compass Direct News) – Following the Appeal Court of Alexandria on Sept. 24 granting custody of 13-year-old Christian twins to their Muslim father, their mother lives with the fear that police will take away her children at any moment.
Kamilia Gaballah has fought with her ex-husband Medhat Ramses Labib over alimony support and custody of sons Andrew and Mario in 40 different cases since he left her and converted to Islam so that he could remarry in 1999.
The court ruled in favor of Labib in spite of Egyptian law’s Article 20, which grants custody of children to their mothers until the age of 15, and a fatwa (religious ruling) from Egypt’s most respected Islamic scholar, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, giving her custody. “This decision was dangerous because it was not taken in accordance with Egyptian law but according to sharia [Islamic] law,” said Naguib Gobraiel, Gaballah’s lawyer and president of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations.
He explained that Egypt’s civic code calls for children under the age of 15 to stay with their mother regardless of their religion. Gobraiel said that sharia tends to favor the Muslim parent in such cases.
“They want to stay with their mother,” said Gobraiel. “They don’t know anything about Islam and sharia. They are Christians and go to church on Sundays.”
The twins have publicly stated their faith, and during a test in a mandatory religious class two years ago they scribbled only, “I am a Christian” on their answer sheets and otherwise turned them in blank. The twins intend to go on a hunger strike if they are forced to live with their Muslim father, whom they hardly know, sources said.
“We only want one thing,” said Gobraiel. “We want the law to be applied in our cases like this one, not the sharia, because the government owes us citizenship. This is a civilized, secular country, not a religious country.”
The decision of the presiding judge, El Sayed El Sherbini, to give the father full custody is not even based on sharia but is purely arbitrary, Gaballah and her eldest son George Medhat Ramses claimed, since the country’s State Mufti had granted custody to the mother in April 2006.
“We don’t want to give them to anyone or comply with the sentence,” Ramses told Compass. “All the legal ways have been wrong to us. We’ve been trying to make it as legal as we can, but the court has not been fair.”
Ramses, 21, who is also a Christian and lives with his mother and two little brothers, said the judged showed bias in favor of his father because he converted to Islam shortly after he left Gaballah.
“The decision was unfair and oppressive,” Gaballah told Compass. “I am treated differently than other Egyptians, as if this is not my own country.”
Gaballah, who has been fighting to keep her sons since the court decided in 2006 that custody of her sons should be given to her ex-husband, fears that her children will grow up without hope and a sense of justice.
“I am so sad and afraid about their psychology,” she said, “because they are facing something that is fundamentally against all the principles I have taught them.”
Gaballah said she is ready to keep fighting with the few means left in her power to keep her sons, even if it means tarnishing her with a criminal record by not handing them over to their father.
“And I’m determined to get justice in my own country, because it is my natural right and my sons’ right,” she said. “I cannot see how I can comply with the people who are taking my rights away from me and taking my children from me to give them to an unworthy father and another woman.”
Labib is now married to his third wife, with whom he has a 4-year-old son. He is a businessman working in exports and travels between Alexandria and Cairo.
Gobraiel said that he intends to send a clear message to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and the international human rights community that judgments like this one are hypocritical on the part of a government that claims to be “civilized.”
“How can they think we live in a civilized and secular country when they are applying sharia law on us?” he asked. “We will send a message to human rights organizations in Egypt and around the world to help us. We are angry and we want to declare it!”
Problematic Birth Certificates
Even under their father’s custody, the twins have the legal right to live with whomever they choose in two years, when they turn 15. But Ramses said he doubts the court would let them return to their mother.
“The same law that states that they should stay with mother until the age of 15 is the one that says they can decide where to live after the age of 15,” he explained. “If the court didn’t apply the first part of the law, they won’t apply the second.”
At the age of 16, when Mario and Andrew apply for their identification cards, they will face yet another hurdle, said Ramses. In 2005, Labib went to the population register and changed the twins’ birth certificates from Christian to Muslim, to reflect his own religion. Over the past few years, as Christians have found out about the twin boys’ case, Ramses said many have called them to give support. Many also have pledged to go on a hunger strike with the boys if they are handed over to their father.
“Christians see them as Coptic heroes and martyrs who stood up in front of all and said they were Christians and held on to it,” said Ramses. “All of them say they see the greatness of their ancestors and Christian heroes of long ago in them … and they carry a lot of respect and love for what they have done.”2) Forcing Islamization on Mrs. Bahia and Shadia El-Sisi:The Lawyer Ramses fears that a Sept. 23 court ruling in the case of Bahia Nagy El-Sisi, sentencing her to prison for three years for “forgery of an official document,” could be what awaits him and his little brothers. Nagy El-Sisi’s father had converted to Islam briefly in 1962, when she was 3 years old, and her documents were never altered to reflect the change as she remained a Christian. She and her sister discovered that their father had temporarily converted to Islam when the sister, Shadia Nagy, tried to issue marriage papers for her son.
Shadia Nagy was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007, also for “forgery.”
“These women are us in the future,” said Ramses.
3) Attacks on Patmos Monastery similar to Abu-Fana Monastery:In spite of the Coptic demonstrations all over the whole world in the past few months, unveiling the true face of the Egyptian regime, the aggression against the Coptic minorities never ended. As a matter of fact near the end of July, the second division of the Egyptian army attacked a Coptic Monastery (PATMOS) and its properties in the area known as Hick Step north of Cairo.
Now, and after the barbaric attacks on the Abu Fana Monastery, the governor of Al Minya is requesting an official apology from the Coptic Church and its attorney! The governor, who was not able to grant safe haven to a few Monks, who have chosen to worship their God in the desert and who were attacked by the barbaric Arabs. None of the attackers were arrested to-date; on the contrary, several Coptic guests who happened to be at the Monastery were arrested and are still in jail.
No official Egyptian condemnation was issued regarding the aggression against the innocent and harmless human beings in their worshiping place nor was any aggressor charged through the law enforcement authorities.Statement of the Holy Synod Committees of the Coptic Orthodox Church on the Attack at Abu Fana Monastery in Mallawi, MinyaThe Episcopal Bishops, members of the Holy Synod committees of the Coptic Orthodox Church, were shocked by the dastardly assault on the monks who reside in the monastery of Abu Fana in Mallawi, and on the monastery itself and its church, buildings and property on Saturday, May 31, 2008. This incident did not occur for many centuries in our beloved Egypt. This occurrence is contrary to what Muslims call for and what Egypt represented in President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak many efforts to preserve Egypt's security, which is unity and reputation.
The attack on monks with automatic weapons, kidnapping some of them who were then tortured by whipping and dragging on the ground, the breaking of their bones, forcing them to insult the cross and confess Islam under torture, and other brutal methods that the human conscience refuses, as well as destruction, damage, burning and obliteration of church, other buildings and the property of the monastery – points to the fact that the monastery does not have any kind of weapons except prayers and worship which is contrary to how some try to portray the abused in the monastery as if they were the aggressors. The attempted attack on the monastery workers during their return on June 4th, pushed the Holy Synod committees to call upon President Mubarak, to lead his people, along with all the state officials, to heal these wounds in the body of the nation through: 1 - The release of unjustly detained Copts.
2 - The arrest of the reported offenders. Following, the State must take legal action against them to prevent them and others from repeating such attacks that endanger the social peace of Egypt.
3 - Portray the true reality, which is the deliberate conspiracy of the offenders to commit the crime, as well as showing all the details of the repeated assault on the monks and the monastery property.
4 - Build a fence around the whole monastery under the supervision of the State Patrol to prevent the recurrence of future attacks. Particularly, the fence must be around artifacts premises, the farm, the cemetery, and the monk’s individual cells (rooms).
5 – Compensate the monastery for damage and stolen items that damaged the monastery buildings and properties, which exceeded one million pounds. 6 - Working on not repeating such attacks by examining its causes and removing them. Our confidence in the wisdom of President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, which endowed by God, and his love for all Egyptians, are the best guarantee for Egypt's security and unity, Bishop BishoyThe Holy Synod Secretary
From May 31st 2008 up to September 30th 2008:The 18th Attack number 18 on the 4th Century Coptic Monastery of 'Abu Fana', one of the oldest Monasteries in the world, in Al-Minya, Upper Egypt.
Three monks were kidnapped, tortured for almost twelve hours and asked to renounce their faith. A fourth man is still in the hands of his kidnappers. As a result of that attack the Monastery’s church and cells were destroyed, and the fields were burned down.
Would you please ask the Government of Egypt what kind of protection they are providing for the people and the old monuments? And where is the fourth kidnapped person after almost 120 days from the date of that barbarian, rootless, inhuman and savage incident?
4) Attacks on a Coptic Church on Rasheed:An Eighteenth century Church in Rasheed was destroyed by a Counselor at law and his two public prosecutor sons who were accompanied by fifty hired thugs.
Stormed adviser (Counselor) and his two sons and prosecutors and more than fifty bully the Roman Church, which sold to the Orthodox in a rational and they demolished the walls with bulldozers, wounding the church guard, "oversaw Fahmi Abdullah," and the destruction of the remains of fathers and saints, icons and theft and looting of shops next to the church tenants.
5) A Christian farmer is barred from building or repairing his house for two years. Coptic families live the tragedy of discrimination in the village, "Sham Al-Bahreya" of Maghagha City, Minya Governate after the security apparatus stopped building the house two years ago on the grounds that the owner, a Coptic poor farmer is accused of church building. Despite the fact that the village has only seven Coptic houses and the majority are Muslims who are very sympathetic with the family. The Coptic, Samir Farag Youssef was "taken aback by the officers and detectives Yahya Tariq who ordered to stop building the house since the date of 11-4 - 2006. He said: “and since then I live with my children, "nine" in the open where I cannot complete the construction of the house since that date, and the house is a six-room forming two apartments. Each apartment consists of three rooms each of which is 3.5X3 meters and the house is erected on an area of one karat. It is only a foundation and walls without completing the building or the installation of roof, Doors or windows.
He continues saying “So I live in agony for two years open to all neighbors and pedestrians without cover for my family, especially my family of nine children, including four girls in the open atmosphere, the freezing winter, rain as well as the blistering sun and bitter cold of winter and heavy rains that precipitate over the winter. I sought to find a solution through Members of the People's Assembly or Anba Agathon, a bishop without any benefit. I address the state security service structures who told me that the subject securities headquarters of a state security in Nasr City at Cairo, they are subject to the decision of the President, Major General Hassan Abdel Rahman, tried to persuade them more than once that this house is not Church and so I've written for approval, but I was unable to reach anyone to lift the injustice and save my children. I am unable to leave them home and go to Cairo because of fear of being exposed to any danger. “
The house is fully distinctive from a church and known to everyone and we all remember the events of Upper Egypt when a Copt started building a house for the marriage of his son Muslims attacked the Copts and started burning of their homes. If this man find sympathy from Muslim neighbors, why not insist on completion of his home in the context of the right to housing and a decent life provided by the Constitution and international covenants?!6) An innocent Copt is unjustly arrested: We are not surprised at the Egyptian government's actions! Hani Aziz, a Coptic writer and blogger and works as a social worker and lives in the town of Nag Hammadi, Qena Governate. Han is always polite and respectful and has a distinctive style in his writings. Hani loves people and loves his country and calls for a national justice and equality among all Egyptians. Hani’s tragedy begins with the emergence of a novel in the Egyptian markets labeled “Azazil” which a writer by the name of Father Uta wrote in response to a person called Zidane Yusuf’s book (one of the hundreds of books and stories that are attacking the Christian faith). But the poor Hani Aziz did not attack any religion. Some of Al-week newspaper journalists known for their hostility not only against all that is a Copt, but all that is Egyptian. They spread roamers among the people of the village that Hani is the author of the novel Azazil and stimulated the young people who gathered to kill Hani, what made him leave his home to escape from the oppression of people The arrest of two brothers and their reservation made him turn himself in to release the two brothers after five days of detention with torture at the police station. Hani’s father has nothing to do with Father Utah who still publishes ideas on the pages of the Internet and the father knows that Utah is just a nick name of a person likely to live outside Egypt.
And how he was captured and did not write the narrator has nothing to do with the Yusuf book while Zidane, who is the cause of the problem live in freedom. The novel Tess Azazil is written by Dr. Yusuf Zidane, an Alexandria University philosophy professor and director of the Office of manuscripts Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Things reached a peak as the Intergovernmental Ribaldries arrested siblings were swapped first turned him in to security!! This is not happening on the police service all over the world, but only occurs between the bandits and mafia
7) Six Young Christian men, owners of a Port Saed Coffee shop, brutally assaulted by Police
Port Said police brutally beating Coptic citizens within their own cafe called "Cafe Central" for initiating the cafe during the day in Ramadan, despite the presence of other cafes working day in Ramadan.C) The double standard and discrimination against Copts! What if the Killer in an Honor and Dignity Case was a Copt?Christian Brother Kills A Terrorist in Search for Kidnapped Sister:An Egyptian Christian man angry at his kidnapped sister killed a Muslim terrorist. Mariam Khillah, was kidnapped, raped, and forcibly converted to Islam approximately 15 month ago by a terrorist, Ahmed Saleh. Since Mariam has disappeared, the family never stopped searching for her return. According to our souses, the policy has mistreated, and beaten the family when reported the disappearance of the daughter. The search for Mariam led to locate the place where she kept away from her family. As a result, the family tried very hard to convince the perpetrator for peaceful settlement, but attempts fail. Eventually, and according to the untrusted Police information, Ramy, brother of Mariam, broke into her Cairo hidden place and sprayed gunfire on the terrorist Ahmed Saleh.
The official reports were full of lies. The police accused the Coptic Egyptian family of killing "an Egyptian Muslim". More falsely claimed that Marian converted to Islam without any pressure, and totally ignored the kidnapping, and raping of Mariam by the terrorist, Ahmed Saleh. This incident showed the role of the police in kidnapping, raping, and force conversion on more than 250,000 Coptic Christian girls, and women, on the last 25 years.The American Coptic Association and the International Christian Union are calling upon US Government, Congress, and Human Rights Organizations to investigate all the crimes against humanity by the Arab Islamic regime in Egypt, and allow the immediate return of kidnapped girls, and women to their families.N.B.: All the above incidents represent the active cases of recent origin, but to go to the accumulating atrocities against Copts, you will have no time or way to calculate them!More than fifty massacres took place during President Mubarak's era, whose government aided these criminals against the victims! The most obvious massacre was that of Al-Kosheh (an upper Egyptian village) at the first day of the millennium, when 21 Copts were killed by the Muslims, aided by police support! These criminals were set free, and the bias justice system did not prosecute any of them, at any judicial level! The criminals on April 14, 2006 will not receive capital punishment as the Egyptian officials claimed that these criminals were mentally ill, even before their arrest!
Savage attacks and rapes on Coptic females, in an effort to convert them to Islam, have been multiplying in the recent years. Muslim converts are being assaulted, tortured, and jailed. Christian Copts are deprived from reaching higher levels in society, and governmental positions. They are severely underrepresented in the political parties, and are denied dignified positions such as Deans of colleges and universities, Chiefs of Policing and Armies. In all aspects of life, Copts are treated as substandard individuals, second-class. This is not equality, this is not Human Rights, and this is definitely not Democracy!
INTERNATIONAL CHRISTIAN UNIONالأتحـادالمسـيحىالعـالمى500 SUMMIT AVE., UNION CITY,NJ 07087 TEL: 201-902-9997 FAX: 201-863-4111
JULY 7, 2008
CAMPAIGN TO ERADICATE COPTS (EGYPT’S CHRISTIANS)Dear Coptic brothers, sisters, sons and daughters: The Copts are facing firm extermination steps since the events of Khanka, through al-Zawiah al-Hamra, KOSHEH, Assiut, Al-Muharraq monastery, and Alexandria... Etc. They are now hitting monks! They have been killing Copts and looting of their property and oppressing them. The Egyptian government is keen to mention such barbaric actions as individual events. While Copts live in fear, the Government is supporting the criminals and offenders and enables them to escape without any punishment. Our Christian people in Egypt are humiliated, tortured, persecuted, and even killed. Security agencies go into coma as long as the victims were Copts. Truly, it is the policy of eliminating Christianity in Egypt.Abu Fana monks in the monastery, have suffered all kinds of torment and humiliation. They were kidnapped and the assailants asked them to spit on the Cross and become Muslims! Can you believe that the governor of Minya, told Abu Fana monks to pay Gizia to the criminal Arab offenders to live in safety? Do you imagine that in the twenty-first century, the aggressors hold modern weapons and the State protect them and protect their weapons as long as they are directed against the Christians?
Four Christians were killed in their Jewelry store a few steps from the Church of Virgin Mary in Zaiton, Cairo in broad daylight and the offenders until now enjoy complete safety! The same crime was committed in Alexandria. This happened only because they are Copts, and the Muslim believes is that the Christian blood and money are permitted and halal for Muslims. The attack is still ongoing upon underage girls and forced Islamization is still happening through the encouragement of authorities.
The suffering of the monks and victims calls onto you to move and to announce to the world the atrocities of our brothers in Egypt to stop these movements of physical liquidation of the Copts.
Christianity is positive not negative, Christianity is work, not slump! The Christian appeal and cooperation are not selfish. Christianity does not accept injustice or humiliation! The Christian crown over our heads mandates us to show that we deserve it. Our voices have to go to the sky carried by the angels and moving them to the Glory of Jesus Christ. Your voices have to be heard
Our people in Egypt and His shed blood are crying, and we are in the most anger protest, march in front of all the free world, in an attempt to stop the streams of blood and the campaign of physical liquidation of our brothers. Because we ourselves are members with the rest of the body of Christ, should not be leaving his teachings that require that we have to defend those who cannot defend themselves and to speak for those who do not have the right to speak. We, together with the ICU (International Christian Union) are preparing for a Washington D.C. Rally on July 15th 2008. Please expect more information soon. For more information, please contact:Dr. Monir Dawoud: (201)424-1001, Mr. Adly Awad: (201) 451 3087, Mr. Joe Hakim: 201 832 8058, Mr. Adel Aguib:(201) 201)376-4011, Mr. Fayez Khellah:(201)424-0278, Mr. Fred Ayad (201)936 8916Please call the above phone numbers for confirmation. We will meet in front of Martin Luther King School at 7:00am
Zaiton execution
A Monk from Abu Fana monastery
A Monk from Abu Fana monastery
IF THIS IS NOT PERSECUTION, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IS IT?!The real tragedy is the fact that the officials are adopting the policy of burying the heads in the sand and denying the rights of Copts! This will definitely lead to the recurrence of such crimes. The sense of any citizen that his Government did not provide him with protection, security and safety of the spirit and presentation, property and religious sanctities will kill the morals and existence of the persecuted person regardless of all the slogans and hollow promises for the claimed “National Unity” that has to be practiced by the oppressed Copts while the Muslim majority despise and even laugh at it!REFRENCES: Trustful Eye-Witnesses, Different Web-Sites and Media Sources.I am not a professional Translator but I did my best to write it in English, so excuse my deficiencies.Monir A. Dawoud, MD, President of ICU (International Christian Union), President of ACA (American Coptic Association) and President of LEVANT (New Name for the Arab American Physician Foundation)