Persecution of Copts

The persecution of Copts and discrimination against Coptic Orthodox Christians are historic and widespread issues in Egypt. Their treatment is indicative of the poor status of Christians in the Middle East more widely, despite the fact that the religion is native to the Middle East, and that Christianity in Egypt dates back to the Roman era. Copts (Coptic: ⲟⲩⲣⲉⲙ'ⲛⲭⲏⲙⲓ 'ⲛ'Ⲭⲣⲏⲥⲧⲓ'ⲁⲛⲟⲥ ou Remenkīmi en.E khristianos, literally: "Egyptian Christian") are the indigenous Christians in Egypt, usually Oriental Orthodox, who currently make up 10% of the population—the largest religious minority of that country. Copts have cited instances of persecution throughout their history and Human Rights Watch has noted "growing religious intolerance" and sectarian violence against Coptic Christians in recent years, as well as a failure by the Egyptian government to effectively investigate properly and prosecute those responsible. However, as political violence is common many churches believe that the attacks against the church are not religious statements, instead political statements. Since 2011, hundreds of Egyptian Copts have been killed in sectarian clashes, and many homes, churches and businesses have been destroyed. In just one province (Minya), 77 cases of sectarian attacks on Copts between 2011 and 2016 have been documented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The abduction and disappearance of Coptic Christian women and girls also remains a serious ongoing problem.

Ancient era

Roman rulers

St. Mark the Evangelist is said to have founded the Holy Apostolic See of Alexandria and to have become its first Patriarch. Within 50 years of St. Mark's arrival in Alexandria, a fragment of New Testament writings appeared in Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa), which suggests that Christianity already began to spread south of Alexandria at an early date. By the mid-third century, a sizable number of Egyptians were persecuted by the Romans on account of having adopted the new Christian faith, beginning with the Edict of Decius. Beginning in 284 AD the Emperor Diocletian persecuted and put to death a great number of Christian Egyptians. This event became a bloodshed in the history of Egyptian Christianity, marking the beginning of a distinct Egyptian or Coptic Church. It became known as the 'Era of Martyrs' and is commemorated in the Coptic calendar in which dating of the years began with the start of Diocletian's reign. When Egyptians were persecuted by Diocletian, many retreated to the desert to seek relief, though relief of the spirit and of its worldly desires to attain peace and unity with Christ the Creator, not escaping the persecutions. The practice precipitated the rise of monasticism, for which the Egyptians, namely St. Antony, St. Bakhum, St. Shenouda and St. Amun, are credited as pioneers. By the end of the 4th century, it is estimated that the mass of the Egyptians had either embraced Christianity or were nominally Christian.

In 451 AD, following the Council of Chalcedon, the Church of Alexandria was divided into two branches. Those who accepted the terms of the Council became known as Chalcedonians or Melkites. Those who did not abide by the council's terms were labeled non-Chalcedonians or Monophysites (and later Jacobites after Jacob Baradaeus). The non-Chalcedonians, however, rejected the term Monophysites as erroneous and insisted on being called Miaphysites. The majority of the Egyptians belonged to the Miaphysite branch, which led to their persecution by the Byzantine imperial authorities in Egypt. First persecutions occurred during reigns of emperors Marcian (450–457) and Leo I (457–474). This continued until the Arab conquest of Egypt, most notably under the militant monotheletist Cyrus of Alexandria.

Islamic era

The Muslim conquest of Egypt

See also: Islamization of Egypt

The Muslim conquest of Egypt took place in 639-641 AD, during the rule of the Roman Emperor Heraclius where Byzantine persecution was still in place. The Muslim rulers enforced the Pact of Umar and the Copts, as none-Muslim subjects, had the status of dhimmi which gave them the freedom to practice their religion freely in public and the exemption from military conscription in exchange for an annual tax, the jizya, on adult wealthy men. Rampant discrimination and persecution under the Pact of Umar forced the majority of Coptic Christians to convert to Islam.

This pact (or some version of it) would remain in place for centuries, influencing the 1856 Hamayouni Decree which mandated that the Ottoman sultan must issue permits for any construction or maintenance of churches, and the Coptic Pope had to apply for all such permits, and the 1934 Ten Conditions of Al-Ezabi which remained in place until December 28, 1999. The prohibition against raising the cross was revoked as a result of the martyrdom of Sidhom Bishay.

One day while sitting in the mosque, Amr ibn al-As boasted: “I sit in this position and none of Egypt’s Copts can make demands of me with regards to treaty or pact [..]; if I desire, I kill, if I desire, I keep the fifth, and if I desire, I sell.” When a Coptic man who converted to Islam during the time of Caliph Umar requested to be freed from his obligation to pay the Jizya, the Caliph said, “No, the conquest of your land was by force.”

An exception to the relative tolerance of Muslim rulers at the time was the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who decreed that the Christians could no longer celebrate Epiphany or Easter. He also outlawed the use of wine (nabidh) and even other intoxicating drinks not made from grapes (fuqa) to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, producing hardship for both Christians (who used wine in their religious rites) and Jews (who used it in their religious festivals). In 1005, al-Ḥākim ordered that Jews and Christians follow ghiyār "the law of differentiation" – in this case, the mintaq or zunnar "belt" (Greek ζωνάριον) and imāmah "turban", both in black. In addition, Jews must wear a wooden calf necklace and Christians an iron cross. In the public baths, Jews must replace the calf with a bell. In addition, women of the People of the Book had to wear two different coloured shoes, one red and one black. These remained in place until 1014. On 18 October 1009, al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre and its associated buildings, apparently outraged by what he regarded as the fraud practiced by the monks in the "miraculous" Descent of the Holy Fire, celebrated annually at the church during the Easter Vigil. The chronicler Yahia noted that "only those things that were too difficult to demolish were spared." Processions were prohibited, and a few years later all of the convents and churches in Palestine were said to have been destroyed or confiscated. It was only in 1042 that the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX undertook to reconstruct the Holy Sepulchre with the permission of Al-Hakim's successor. The Coptic language massively declined under the hands of Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who issued strict orders completely prohibiting its use anywhere whether in homes, roadways, or schools. Those who didn't comply had their tongues cut off. He even ordered mothers that spoke to their children in Coptic to also have their tongue cut off. He personally walked the streets of Cairo and eavesdropped on Coptic-speaking homes to find out if any family was speaking Coptic.

Despit al-Hakim's era, Egypt remained mainly Christian, but Coptic Christianity lost its majority status after the 14th century.

Muslim mobs in Cairo began destroying Coptic churches in 1321. The historian Donald P. Little says that these anti-Christian riots “were carefully orchestrated throughout Egypt,” destroying large numbers of churches and monasteries. Although Muslim rulers did eventually put down the mobs, smaller-scale anti-Christian attacks, arson, looting, and murder became far more persistent. In the year 1354 Muslim mobs “ran amok, destroying churches... and attacking Christians and Jews in the streets, and throwing them into bonfires if they refused to pronounce the shahādatayn [to accept Allah as the only true god and Muhammad as his messenger]”. According to the medieval Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi, soon afterwards in “all the provinces of Egypt, both north and south, no church remained that had not been razed.... Thus did Islam spread among the Christians of Egypt.” The Mamluks destroyed most of the churches and killed an estimated 300,000 Coptic Christians over the course of the 13th century.

Besides forced conversions, massacres of Coptic men and women would also happen if they left Islam:

In 1389, a great procession of Copts who had accepted Muhammad under fear of death, marched through Cairo. Repenting of their apostasy, they now wished to atone for it by the inevitable consequence of returning to Christianity. So as they marched, they announced that they believed in Christ and renounced Muhammad. They were seized and all the men were beheaded one after another in an open square before the women. But this did not terrify the women; so they, too, were all martyred.

The many riots against Coptic Christians in many Egyptian cities and towns such as Cairo during the 14th century were due to resentment over the extraordinary wealth of Copts who dominated the Sultan’s bureaucracy and who, despite repeated purges, often returned to power because Muslim replacements could not be found.

Modern era

Edward William Lane, an Arabist who traveled around Egypt in the 1820s disguised as a Muslim, was one of the first modern Europeans to witness the execution of an apostate—in this case, a female convert to Christianity who was exposed by her Coptic cross tattoo. Lane recounts:

Apostasy from the faith of Islam is considered a most heinous sin, and must be punished with death, unless the apostate will recant on being thrice warned. I once saw a woman paraded through the streets of Cairo, and afterwards taken down to the Nile to be drowned, for having apostatized from the faith of Muhammad, and having married a Christian. Unfortunately, she tattooed a blue cross on her arm, which led to her detection by one of her former friends in a bath. She was mounted upon a high-saddled ass, such as ladies in Egypt usually ride, and very respectably dressed, attended by soldiers, and surrounded by a rabble, who, instead of commiserating, uttered loud imprecations against her. The Kadee [or qadi, a Muslim judge] who passed sentence upon her, exhorted her, in vain, to return to her former faith. She was taken in a boat into the midst of the river, stripped nearly naked, strangled and then thrown into the stream.

Observers note a large gap between rights for Copts and other minorities that exist under the law and what exists in practice. Critics cite that while in 2016 the parliament worked to pass a bill making it easier for Christians to get government permission to build churches, in practice security officials have stopped actual construction. In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity.

The government also requires permits for repairing churches or building new ones, which are often withheld. Article 235 of the 2013 draft constitution requires the next legislative body to create a law that would remove the restrictions on the building of churches.

Copts complain that disputes between Christians and Muslims are often put before "reconciliation councils", and that these councils invariably favour Muslims. Some Copts complain that the police do not respond when crimes are committed against them. Copts also have little representation in government, leading them to fear there is little hope of progress.

The government and other Egyptian sources blame tribal behavior in rural Egypt for much of the violence.

Complaints by Copts of discrimination in social life also reach the world of sports and the notable absence of Christians in major Egyption sports delegations, namely the national football team. Pope Tawadros remarked in 2018 that "it’s extraordinary that all of Egypt’s football teams don’t have a single Copt who has good legs and who kicked a ball on the streets when he was little". And Muslim former player Ahmed Hossam, known in the footballing world as Mido, stated in an interview that "regrettably, there’s a lot of people in Egypt who are bigoted over colour, religion and ethnicity. We must confront them and not bury our heads in the sand. Can you believe it that in the history of football in Egypt, only five Christians played at the top level?"

1980s–1990s

• 20 June 1981 – Ten dead in MB Christian clashes in Zawaya Hamra. Five Christians killed and four Muslims killed and one unidentified body.

• 9 March 1992 – Manshiet Nasser, Dyroot, Upper Egypt: Copt son of a farmer Badr Abdullah Massoud is gunned down after refusing to pay a tax of about $166 to the local leader of Islamic Group. Massoud's body is then hacked with knives.
• 4 May 1992 – Villages of Manshia and Weesa in Dyroot, Upper Egypt: After being Manshiet Naser's Christians for weeks, an Islamic extremist methodically shoots 13 of them to death. Victims included ten farmers and a child tending their fields, a doctor leaving his home for work, and an elementary school teacher giving a class.

• 1997 – Abu Qurqas: Three masked gunmen entered St. George Church in Abu Qurqas and shot dead eight Copts at a weekly youth group meeting. As the attackers fled, they gunned down a Christian farmer watering his fields.

2000s

• January 2000 – 20 Christians were killed in riots in the village of Al Kosheh,

Al Kosheh is a predominantly Christian Village in southern Egypt. After a Muslim customer and a Christian shoe-store owner fell into an argument, three days of rioting and street fighting erupted leaving 20 Christians (including four children) and one Muslim dead. The killings were not committed in the village of Al Kosheh itself, but in surrounding villages where Muslims are the majority. In the aftermath, 38 Muslim defendants were charged with murder and possession of guns in connection with the deaths of the 20 Copts. But all were acquitted of murder charges, and only four were convicted of any (lesser) charges, with the longest sentence given being 10 years. After protest by the Coptic Pope Shenouda, the government granted a new trial.

• February and April 2001 – International Christian Concern reports that in February 2001, armed Muslims burned a church and 35 Christian homes in Egypt. April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a convert from Islam to Christianity.

• 19 April 2009 – A group of Muslims (Mahmoud Hussein Mohamed (26 years old), Mohamed Abdel Kader (32 years old), Ramadan Fawzy Mohamed (24 years old), Ahmed Mohamed Saeed (16 years old), and Abu Bakr Mohamed Saeed) open fire at Christians on Easter's Eve killing two (Hedra Adib (22 years old), and Amir Estafanos (26 years old)) and injuring another (Mina Samir (25 years old)). This event was in Hegaza village, Koos city. On February 22, 2010, they were sentenced to 25 years of jail.

2010–2011

• 7 January 2010—six Christians killed in attack on Christmas celebration in Nag Hammadi known as the Nag Hammadi massacre.

Machine gun attack by three MBs from an Amazigh (Berbers) tribe called Al-Hawara on Coptic Christians celebrating Christmas. Seven are killed (including a Muslim officer who was on service).

• A 2010 New Year's Eve attack by Islamic fundamentalists on the Coptic Orthodox Church in the city of Alexandria left 21 dead and many more injured. One week later, thousands of Muslims stood as human shields outside churches as Coptic Christians attended Christmas Masses on 6 and 7 January 2011.

• 1 January 2011 (On New Year's Eve) – 21 Christians killed in bombing in Alexandria.

A car bomb exploded in front of an Alexandria Coptic Orthodox Church killing at least 21 and injuring at least 79. The incident happened a few minutes after midnight as Christians were leaving a New Year's Eve Church service.

• 11 January 2011 – A mentally deranged member of the police force opened fire randomly in a train in Samalout station in Minya province resulting in the death of a 71-year-old Coptic Christian man and injuring of 5 others Copts and Muslims.
• 30 January 2011, just days after the demonstrations to reform the Egyptian government, Muslims in southern Egypt broke into two homes belonging to Coptic Christians. The Muslim assailants murdered 11 people and wounded four others.
• 5 March 2011 – A church was set on fire in Sole, Egypt by a group of Muslim men angry that a Muslim woman was romantically involved with a Christian man. Large groups of Copts then proceeded to hold major protests stopping traffic for hours in vital areas of Cairo.

• 7 May 2011 – the burning of 3 Coptic Orthodox churches, and the destruction of many Christian-owned houses and businesses. In addition, 15 people were killed in the attacks, and about 232 injured.

• 18 May 2011 – The Coptic Church obtained a permission in January to turn a garment factory bought by the church in 2006, into a church in the neighbourhood of Ain Shams of Cairo. However, angry Muslim mobs attacked the church and scores of Copts and Muslims were arrested for the disturbance. On Sunday May 29, an Egyptian Military Court sentenced two Coptic Christians to five years in jail each for violence and for trying to turn a factory into an unlicensed church.

2012–2013

• 18 September 2012 – A Coptic Christian schoolteacher was sentenced to jail for six years because he posted cartoons on Facebook which were allegedly defamatory to Islam and Mohammed, and also insulted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Al-Jamaa Al-Islamiya members and Salafist groups attempted to attack Kamel as he was led out of court, and rocks were thrown at the police car used to take him away from the court. However, the schoolteacher denied posting the cartoons and said that his account was hacked.

• According to The Guardian, four Christians and one Muslim were killed in sectarian clashes that broke out north of Cairo after children allegedly drew a swastika on Islamic property. On Sunday Christians gathered in Cairo to remember the dead in a service that ended by further escalating sectarian tensions resulting in two Christians and one Muslim being killed. Local news reports that the sixth Coptic victim who has died was set on fire during the clashes died in hospital a few days later, while according to other media sources the second Muslim victim died from a fractured skull.

Christians complained revolution, and the first time the Cathedral had been attacked.

• July 2013 – Muslim Brotherhood supporters burn dozens of churches.

Following the July 3 coup d'état against President Mohamed Morsi – a member of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood – Muslim Brotherhood supporters burn dozens of churches throughout Egypt and killed at least 45 Coptic Christians.

2014–2015

• In March 2014, Mary Sameh George, a 25-year-old Coptic Christian woman, was killed by a group of Muslims who are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. An eyewitness told the Egyptian TV show 90 Minutes that "once they saw that she was a Christian because of a cross hanging on her rear view mirror, they jumped on top of the car. They pulled her out of the car and started pounding on her and pulling her hair. They beat and stripped her, stabbed her in the back and slit her throat."

• In December 2014, A Coptic doctor named Magdy Sobhi and his wife were killed by Ansar al-Sharia in Libya. They kidnapped his eldest daughter Catherine, who was later found dead in a desert. The motivation for the killing was found to be religious and not criminal because local police found money in the doctor's apartment untouched.

• On 15 February 2015, militants in Libya claiming loyalty to ISIL released a video depicting the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians. Subsequently, the victims were commemorated as martyr saints on the 8th Amshir of the Coptic calendar, which is February 15 of the Gregorian calendar.

2016–2017

• February 2016 – three Christian teenagers in Minya are sentenced to five years in prison for insulting Islam. They had appeared in a video, allegedly mocking Muslim prayers, but claimed they had been mocking IS following a number of beheadings by that group.

• 26 May – a 70-year-old Christian woman in Minya is beaten and dragged through the streets naked by a mob who falsely suspected her son of having a sexual relationship with a Muslim woman.

• On 11 December 2016, the Botroseya Church bombing killed 29 people and injured 47 others.

• February 2017 – terrorist groups fighting in the Sinai insurgency call for attacks on Christians. At least seven Christians are killed in separate attacks in city of El Arish in Sinai. Many Coptic families respond by fleeing from the Sinai Peninsula to Ismailia Governorate.

• 9 April 2017 – Bombings of two Coptic churches kill over 45 people and injures over 130. St George's Coptic Orthodox Church in the Tanta region and St Mark's Church in Alexandria were bombed during Palm Sunday processions.

• 7 May 2017 – A Christian man was shot dead by Islamic State militants in El Arish.

• 26 May – 2017 Minya attack, In May 2017, gunmen executed at least 28 Christian pilgrims traveling in a bus to the monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor in Minya Governorate.

• 12 October – A Coptic priest was killed in a knife attack in Cairo; his murderer subsequently declared his antipathy toward Christians.

• 29 December – A gunman who was later identified as an Islamic extremist shot multiple people at Saint Menas church in Helwan killing 11 people including a police officer.

2018

• 1 January – Two Coptic Christian brothers were killed by masked gunmen for being inside an alcohol store in Al Omraneyah, Giza. According to eyewitnesses, the masked man shouted during the shooting "these are Christians"

• 15 January – A Coptic man was killed in El Arish. Two armed Muslim men stopped Bassem and asked him about his religion. After answering that he was Christian, they shot him in the head.

• 2 November – At least seven killed and seven wounded when Bedouins loyal to ISIL opened fire on a bus-load of Coptic pilgrims travelling between Cairo and Minya on its way to a monastery.

• 12 December – A Coptic man and his son were killed in Minya Governorate by a police officer responsible for guarding the church after fabricating a quarrel with them.

2020–present

• 5 October 2020 – A Muslim mob in the village of Dabbous near Samalut attacked Coptic people, homes and property after two Muslim adults bullied and beat up a 10-year-old Coptic child, causing retaliation from Coptic adults. The police later arrested six Muslims and six Christians.

• 18 April 2021 – A Coptic man in Bir al-Abd was held captive for five months by ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula, then killed on camera. In the video, he stated that he helped build the Church of Virgin Mary in Bir El-Abd, and that it is helping the army and intelligence services fight ISIS.

• 27 May 2021 – A Coptic monk is executed for murder of the abbot of his monastery over authority and control disputes, the accused monk within the monastery was forced to confess. UN experts sent a letter to the Egyptian authorities expressing concerns about the allegations of torture of him and his co-defendant.

• 19 July 2021 – St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada was completely incinerated. This followed a string of church arsons in Canada, following, now refuted claims, that mass graves of indigenous students had been discovered in Catholic residential schools. The woman responsible was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

Abduction and forced conversion of Coptic women

Agape Girgis, 13-year-old Egyptian girl, abducted from Nahda, el-Ameriya, near Alexandria, on December 23, 2012, published by the Assyrian International News Agency

Coptic women and girls are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. In 2009 the Washington, D.C.-based group Christian Solidarity International published a study of the abductions and forced marriages and the anguish felt by the young women because returning to Christianity is against the law. Further allegations of organised abduction of Copts, trafficking and police collusion continue in 2017.

In April 2010, a bipartisan group of 17 members of the U.S. Congress expressed concern to the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Office about Coptic women who faced "physical and sexual violence, captivity ... exploitation in forced domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation, and financial benefit to the individuals who secure the forced conversion of the victim."

According to the Egyptian NGO Association of Victims of Abduction and Forced Disappearance, between 2011 and March 2014, around 550 Coptic girls have been kidnapped, and forced to convert to Islam. According the same survey around 40% of the girls were raped prior to their conversion to Islam and married their captors.

Post-revolution anti-women radical trend afflicting Copts

The synchronization of fatwas by Abu Islam and fatwas by other scholars which categorize certain groups of women (primarily Coptic women) as women who are 'asking for it' because they are not in the radical boat or oppose the regime, have been seen as unacceptable and degrading to Egyptian women in general, and to independent women (widows and divorcees) in particular. Coptic women were categorized as Crusaders, sharameet (prostitutes), or "lewd" and therefore willing to be raped. Egyptian activist Salma Almasrya said that what the scholar has claimed matches the official declaration from state men which blamed the female activists for the rape crimes which they were subjected to. Almasrya commented on the un-deterred harassment on the part of the Ministry of Media for two female interviewers in two different situations, one of whom was called "hot" on air while the other was told to "come and I will show you where!" when she asked about the freedom of expression, a phrase that was considered very offensive by the media.

See also

• Christianity in Egypt
• Human rights in Egypt#Freedom of religion
• Human rights in the Middle East
• Human rights in Muslim-majority countries
• Persecution of Christians#Egypt
• Religion in Egypt#Freedom of religion and human rights
• Christianity and Islam
• Controversies related to Islam and Muslims
• List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
• Anti-Oriental Orthodox sentiment

Bibliography

• Meyendorff, John (1989). Imperial unity and Christian divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D. The Church in history. Vol. 2. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881410556.
• Ostrogorsky, George (1956). History of the Byzantine State. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• Haddad, Yvonne; Donovan, Joshua (2013). "Good Copt, Bad Copt: Competing Narratives on Coptic Identity in Egypt and the United States". Studies in World Christianity. 19 (3): 208–232. doi:10.3366/swc.2013.0058. - Print ISSN 1354-9901 Online ISSN 1750-0230

External links

• European Centre for Law and Justice (2011): The Persecution of Oriental Christians, what answer from Europe?