[PRB]

No to Churches, Period

In June 2011, hundreds of Muslims surrounded another St. George Church, south of Minya, vowing to kill its priest—who was locked inside serving morning mass to several parishioners. The Muslims cried "We will kill the priest, we will kill him and no one will prevent us," adding that they would "cut him to pieces." As usual, police and security forces gave the terrorists ample time to terrorize—appearing a full five hours after the incident began; and when they escorted the priest out, it "looked as if he was the criminal, leaving his church in a police car." Several reasons were given for this attack, from claims that the priest had earlier tried to make renovations to the 100-year old church, to claims that the priest refused demands from local Muslims that the Christians in the region must pay jizya.

In May 2011, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the prospect of a government-closed church re-opening in their neighborhood, protested and rioted in front of the church, causing the provisional military authority to back away from its promise to reopen it. Before its scheduled reopening, the Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Abraam in Ain Shams, a poor section of northeastern Cairo, was surrounded by Muslims preventing anyone from getting in and trapping the priests who were inside. Fights ensued between Copts and Muslims, leading to the injury and arrest of the former. Muslims besieged the church and threatened to kill the head priest of the congregation, trapping those inside.

Other times, the mere rumor of a church being built or renovated prompts Muslim violence and chaos. On January 16, 2013, hundreds of Muslims in the village of Fanous destroyed a social services building belonging to a Coptic Church while chanting Islamic slogans. Security forces arrived only after the building was completely destroyed. "The social services building had all the necessary government permits; it had a reception hall on the first floor and a kindergarten on the second. But the Muslims insisted that it would become a church." Even so, surrounding mosques began called on Muslims through their megaphones to go and help their Muslim brethren in Fanous, because Christians were "building a church."

Earlier, in March 2012, some 1,500 Muslims—several armed with swords and knives and shouting Islamic slogans—terrorized the Notre Dame Language School in Upper Egypt, in response to calls from local mosques which falsely claimed that the private school was building a church: "Two nuns were besieged in the school's guesthouse for some eight hours by a murderous mob threatening to burn them alive"; one nun suffered a "major nervous breakdown requiring hospitalization… The entire property was ransacked and looted. The next day the Muslims returned and terrorized the children. Consequently, school attendance has dropped by at least one third."

In fact, attacks on convents in Egypt—often followed by mass rapes—have a long history. Maqrizi recounts several, including one at the hands of a caliph, Marwan II (r.744–50). During one of his raids ordered on churches and monasteries, Marwan "made captive a number of women from among the nuns of several convents. And he tried to seduce one of them." The account describes how the enslaved nun deceived him into killing him, by telling him she had a magic oil that make skin impenetrable: "She then took some oil and anointed herself with it; then stretched out her neck, which he smote with the sword, and made her head fly. He then understood that she preferred death to defilement."

Islamic Supremacism

Other attacks are simple byproducts of the culture of Islamic supremacism, and the hate and contempt it engenders for Christians and their "houses of infidelity." On Friday, February 15, Muslims in the village of Sarsena attacked and set fire to the church of St. George and hurled stones at it. This latest assault was prompted by Salafi Muslims instigating the villagers to attack the church because it is "an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved." According to the report, "The mob climbed to the church dome and started demolishing it and setting it on fire. The dome collapsed into the burning church and caused great damage. Muslims used bricks from the dome and the holy cross and hurled it at the altar inside the church, causing part of it to be demolished; all the icons of saints were destroyed." Security was present throughout this entire attack but did nothing.

In October 2012, another group of Muslims, led by Mostafa Kamel, a prosecutor at the Alexandria Criminal Court, broke into the Church of St. Mary in Rashid near Alexandria and proceeded to destroy its altar, under claims that he bought the 9th century church, which, in fact, was earlier sold to the Copts by the Greeks due to the latter's dwindling numbers in Egypt. Two priests, Fr. Maximos and Fr. Luke, rushed to the police station for aid. Kamel and his two sons also came to the police station where they openly threatened to kill the two priests and their lawyer. Said Fr. Maximos: "We stayed at the police station for over six hours with the police begging prosecutor Kamel and his two sons not to demolish the church"; Fr. Luke said that the prosecutor had earlier lost all the cases he brought against the church, "So when this route failed, he tried taking the matter into his own hands."

In June 2012, because many visiting Christians came to attend service, Muslims surrounded St. Lyons Coptic Church during Divine Liturgy "demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demand was not met." The priest contacted police asking for aid only to be told to comply with Muslim demands, "and do not let buses with visitors to come to the church anymore." Christian worshippers exited halfway through Mass to jeers outside. As they drove away, Muslims hurled stones at the buses.

The same story repeated itself in October 2012, when a Muslim mob consisting mostly of Salafis surrounded the St. George Church in the Beni Suef Governorate. Armed with batons, they assaulted Christians as they exited the church after Sunday mass, leaving five hospitalized with broken limbs. The Salafi grievance was that Christians from neighboring villages—who have no churches to serve them—were traveling and attending St. George. The priest could not go out of church for hours after mass, even though he contacted police, who only came after a prominent Coptic lawyer complained to the Ministry of Interior concerning the lack of response from police, saying "I want the whole world to know that a priest and his congregation are presently held captives in their church, afraid of the Salafi Muslims surrounding the church."

This desire to make things complicated for Christians by not allowing them to enter churches out of their jurisdiction is echoed by Muslim prophet Muhammad's command to Muslims: "Do not initiate the Salam [peace greeting] to the Jews and Christians, and if you meet any of them in a road, force them to its narrowest alley," which has always been interpreted to mean that Muslims should make things hard on dhimmis.