Category Archives: Copts

Arab Spring Egypt’s ‘Legal’ Persecution of Christians

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by Raymond Ibrahim
Special to IPT News
May 29, 2013

Post “Arab Spring” Egypt continues exposing its true nature, including now legalpersecution of Christians. Earlier this month, according to Fox News, Dimyana Abdel-Nour a “pale, young Christian woman sat handcuffed in the courtroom, accused of insulting Islam while teaching history of religions to fourth-graders.” Her accusers are 10-year-old Muslim children who say she “showed disgust when she spoke of Islam in class.”

According to Islamic law, the word of inferior Christians cannot stand against that of superior Muslims—even if they are resentful or confused children.

Released on bail, Dimyana is unable to talk and “suffering a nervous breakdown.”

The report continues:

Criminalizing blasphemy was enshrined in the country’s Islamist-backed constitution that was adopted in December. Writers, activists and even a famous television comedian have been accused of blasphemy since then. But Christians seem to be the favorite target of Islamist prosecutors. Their fragile cases — the main basis of the case against Abdel-Nour’s case the testimony of children — are greeted with sympathy from courtroom judges with their own religious bias or who fear the wrath of Islamists, according to activists. The result is a growing number of Egyptians, including many Christians, who have been convicted and sent to prison for blasphemy…. Part of the Salafis’ antagonism toward Christians is rooted in the belief that they were a protected group under Mubarak’s regime while they, the Salafis, were persecuted. Now empowered, they may be out to exact revenge on the Christians….

Indeed, before President Obama threw Hosni Mubarak under the bus in the name of “freedom” and “democracy,” Christians were at least legally protected: Muslim mobs were limited to lawless attacks on Christian churches and persons. But now that the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis are in charge, Egypt’s Christians are now also experiencing legal persecution in the courtrooms, especially in the context of blasphemy.

Read more at IPT

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Cairo: Mob Attacks Coptic Christians in Cathedral

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Egyptian Coptic Christians mourn after a previous attack. (Photo: © Reuters)

Tue, April 9, 2013:

Egyptian state media reported that one person was killed and more than 80 wounded in clashes at the St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in central Cairo after a funeral service for four Egyptian Christians killed in sectarian violence with Muslims.

Hundreds of Christians were under siege inside Cairo’s Coptic cathedral as security forces and local residents, some armed with handguns, launched a prolonged and unprecedented attack on the headquarters of Egypt’s ancient Church.

At least one person was killed and at least 84 injured as Christians inside the walled St Mark’s cathedral compound came under a frenzied assault from their assailants.

Following the funeral service, thousands of Christians poured out on to the street and began chanting slogans against Mohamed Morsi, the Egyptian President and long-time member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Copts chanted, “With our blood and soul we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross.” They shouted slogans calling for the departure of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement as the coffins were carried head-high into the church.

The funeral was for four Copts who were killed in the city of Khosous, about 10 miles (15km) north of Cairo, after inflammatory symbols were drawn on an Islamic institute, provoking an argument. A melee ensued and the four Copts, along with one Muslim, were killed.

Witnesses reported that the violence at the funeral began when a mob attacked the mourners as they exited the cathedral, pelting them with bottles, stones and petrol bombs. The Christians responded by throwing stones back until police arrived and attempted to quell the unrest, firing tear gas into the cathedral compound. After being hit by rocks thrown from the roofs of nearby buildings, the mourners were reportedly forced back into the cathedral compound.

Read more at The Clarion Project

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Obama’s New Libya

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Libya_Jihad-450x333By :

Remember all the hoopla the Obama administration engaged in after helping Libya’s “freedom fighters” oust (and sodomize and murder) the nation’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi? Remember the rationale used by Obama to justify using the U.S. military to help Libya’s “opposition”?  In his March 28, 2011 speech, he spoke of “our responsibilities to our fellow human beings,” adding that not assisting them “would have been a betrayal of who we are.”

Although it was common knowledge that al-Qaeda and other fiercely anti-American forces were involved in the Libyan jihad, this did not shake Obama’s “responsibilities” to his “fellow human beings.” Predictably, the thanks the U.S. received was an al-Qaeda attack on the American embassy in Benghazi and the murders of four American officials, including Ambassador Chris Stevens (an attack the Obama administration tried to frame as a product of an amateur YouTube video that had “offended” Muslims).

Beyond the attack on Libya’s American embassy, there has been no end of examples of the true nature of the “New Libya” Obama helped create. On Sunday, December 30, an explosion rocked a Coptic Christian church near the western city of Misrata, where a group of U.S.-backed rebels hold a major checkpoint, killing two. Two months later, on February 28, another Coptic Christian church located in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by armed Muslim militants, resulting in serious injuries for the priest and an assistant.

On February 10, four foreign Christians were arrested in Benghazi, including one with American citizenship, on the claim that they were “missionaries.”  Three days later, two more Christians from Egypt were arrested. Three days after that, a seventh Christian, also from Egypt, was arrested. Then, on February 27, Benghazi forces raided another Coptic church rounding up some 100 Coptic Christians, accusing them of being missionaries—simply because they were found in possession of Bibles and other Christian “paraphernalia.” Many of these Christians have been tortured, some with acid.

Read more at Front Page

 

Israel Today interviews Ashraf Ramelah of Voice of the Copts

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20130308_Ashraf_Ramelah_LARGE

 

by ASHRAF RAMELAH:

Ryan Jones of Israel Today interviews Ashraf Ramelah of Voice of the Copts – March 2013

 

1. Egypt is heating up again. Do you think there will be another revolution, this time against the Muslim Brotherhood?

I can’t call what has been going on in Egypt for two years a revolution, but I can call such an event an uprising. An uprising consists of multiple, massive protests against the existing system, while revolution is to overthrow that system. In Egypt, the system has always been as it is now, Islamic supremacy dominated by an Islamic mentality. In Egypt, the uprising so far has resulted in a power shift within the existing system, such as Mubarak leaving and Morsi taking his place.

For two years now the Egyptian people have been bravely protesting in the streets and squares around the country but, unfortunately, have not yet succeeded in a revolution. Will they succeed in revolution and overturn Islamic supremacy, the existing system since Nasser’s coup of 1952, and begin a democracy? This remains to be seen.

Egypt’s youth went out to protest in the streets on January 25, 2011 and these sustained protests grew into a prolonged uprising. The Muslim Brotherhood attached itself to this uprising to usurp power from Mubarak. Now with the help of foreign power and currency, the Muslim Brotherhood will overwhelm the uprising once again as they did in the earliest stage of the uprising with their balancing act of propagandizing the West and using their militia force. It does not look good for the future of Egypt.

2. What is life like for Egyptian Christians under the Muslim Brotherhood?

The plight of the Egyptian Christians today entails Christian women living in fear of attacks by Muslim gangs because they do not wear the veil. As before, Christians are subject to open discrimination by Muslim Koran-adherents who frequently commit acts of destruction of Christian property and routinely threaten and take the lives of Copts. Muslim mobs randomly bomb church buildings, set them on fire or use bulldozers and hatchets to demolish them   — this violence now accelerated under Morsi. Worshippers coming and going from church are at high risk of never returning home, a familiar scenario for Copts.

In this new political climate, the Muslim nemesis has been emboldened. Muslim vigilantes have now revived (unofficially) the anti-Copt Hamayouni Decree of 1856. Accordingly, Muslims actively forbid Christian burials in Christian cemeteries where Muslim cemeteries are nearby — believing that the corpse of a Christian should never be interred within proximity of a buried Muslim. Is this perhaps the ultimate act of bigotry?

3. Does Egypt’s new constitution discriminate against or make life difficult/dangerous for Christians?

Egypt’s new constitution is consistent with and generally supports the discriminatory behavior described in my answer to the previous question and will ultimately endanger the lives of all Egyptians. For the Brotherhood, any approved Egyptian constitution is a façade for the benefit of the West. A constitution’s sole value is to impose religious Sharia law through drafted articles which are absent of religious freedom and universal human rights. This in turn will degrade the country’s economy as it discourages tourism and Western investments.

4. How do Egypt’s Coptic Christians view Israel?

Islamic bigotry and prejudice against Jews in Egypt predates the Jewish State of Israel. Islam’s discriminatory teachings have dominated Egypt’s culture for centuries and have been passed down through generations, infecting Muslims and Christians alike. Public school textbooks saturate Muslim and non-Muslim children in their formative years with messages of hate toward Israel and Jews. Today Christian Copts are awash in the culture of Islam like fish in water and many grossly err in relation to Christ’s teachings on the issue of Jews and Coptic biblical history and heritage.
Read more: Family Security Matters 

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Ashraf Ramelah is founder and president of Voice of the Copts, a human rights organization drawing attention to the suffering of Coptic Christians in Egypt and educating as to the chilling effect of Sharia (Islamic law).

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Wolf Issues Report Following Trip To Middle East

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images (29)WOLF ISSUES REPORT FOLLOWING VISIT TO MIDDLE EAST DURING TUMULTUOUS TIME OF CHANGE IN THE REGION
Renews Call for Special Envoy to Advocate for Beleaguered Minority Faith Communities, Which are Increasingly Under Assault

 

Washington, D.C. (March 7, 2013) – Rep. Frank Wolf today made a series of policy recommendations – including his continued push for the creation of a Special Envoy for Religious Minorities in the Middle East and South Central Asia – following a recent trip to Lebanon and Egypt, where he met with high-ranking government officials, religious leaders, humanitarian aid organizations and refugees who have fled Syria.

The recommendations are included in a 14-page report detailing the trip. Titled “First the Saturday People, Then the Sunday People: The Exodus of Jews and Christians from the Middle East,” the report is set against the backdrop of historic and tumultuous change in the broader Middle East.  The primary focus of Wolf’s trip was to talk to the Syrian Christian community as well as other religious minorities in the region.  He wanted to hear firsthand about their concerns and what the future might hold.  He also wanted to put this issue in the larger context of an imperiled Christian community in the broader Middle East, specifically in Egypt and Iraq. Wolf came away deeply troubled by what he heard and alarmed at what amounted to the changing face of the Middle East.

The report details the virtual elimination of once vibrant Jewish communities in countries like Egypt and Iraq, and cautions that a similar fate may await the Christian communities in these same lands.  The report’s title reflects this sobering reality.

While in Lebanon, Wolf met with both Christian and Muslim families who had crossed the border from Syria.  He also toured the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is leading the humanitarian response in Lebanon, and visited two locations where refugees are now living.

Wolf said there is no easy solution to the tragedy that is unfolding in Syria, especially after hearing from many of the people he talked to that dynamics changed with the arrival of foreign fighters.  Wolf was told men from Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and Egypt are now fighting in Syria.  There have been press reports that jihadists from Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Iraq are also in Syria.

Wolf said the Syrian Christians he met with all encouraged the church in the West to speak out on their behalf.

In Egypt, Wolf met with one of the last remaining Jews in the country, leaders in the Coptic Christian community, civil society activists and Egyptian government officials, including the prime minister.

Except for his meetings with Egyptian officials, no one painted a rosy picture for the future of Egypt, and many were critical of the United States’ perceived support for the Muslim Brotherhood.  He was told the United States was losing credibility and appeared to have double standards when it came to freedoms in America versus freedoms in other countries.

Wolf reported that the perception among opposition leaders and the minority community was that as long as the Muslim Brotherhood looked out for U.S. interests in the region it could act with impunity within its own borders.  He was told “the United States is helping create a state of terrorism that will be exported to Europe.  The dogma of religion affecting human rights and women’s rights will be worse than the Wahhabi sect in Saudi Arabia.”

Wolf cautioned that if the Middle East is effectively emptied of the Christian faith it will have grave geopolitical implications.  He urged policymakers not to underestimate the impact of this demographic shift on the prospects for pluralism and democracy in the Middle East.  He also stressed that these ancient faith com¬munities “have inhabited these lands for centuries, and are a vital part of the fabric of global Christendom.”  He urged church leaders in the West to speak out about what is happening not only in Syria, but in the Middle East as a whole, and recommended that Christian leaders from the Middle East be brought to the United States to make the case for greater engagement from the American faith community.  In January, Wolf wrote to more than 300 Protestant and Catholic leaders in the U.S. urging them to use their influence to speak out on behalf of the persecuted church around the globe, specifically in the Middle East.

Wolf has been pushing since January 2011 to establish a high-level Special Envoy at the State Department with the dedicated mission of protecting and preserving religious minority communities in the Middle East and South Central Asia.  The House by a vote of 402-20 in July 2011 approved creating the position, but the effort stalled in the Senate. Wolf has reintroduced this bipartisan legislation in the 113th Congress.

Regarding Egypt, Wolf said the United States should seriously consider conditioning its foreign assistance, specifically military assistance.

“Since the Camp David Peace Accords, Egypt has received over $60 billion in U.S. foreign assistance, the second-largest overall recipient of such funding,” Wolf said. “Given the Mubarak regime’s human rights and religious freedom abuses, I have long-believed this assistance should be conditioned on improvements in these areas.  Now with the Muslim Brotherhood at the helm, and the transition to a mature democracy with all that entails far from certain, I am more convinced than ever that aid to Egypt must be conditioned upon the government respecting and upholding universally recognized human rights norms.”

Wolf said the United States must press President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood more broadly to respect and uphold religious freedom, freedom of speech and the press, freedom of assembly and other basic rights. Police reform, too, must be a priority, he said.

“Rather than ramming through the constitution, the Muslim Brotherhood must be urged to embrace an inclusive process that takes into account the concerns of the opposition and various minority groups,” Wolf said.  “Clear benchmarks must be set – and ?an agreed upon framework established – ?that allows policymakers in the U.S. to determine if Egypt is truly on a path to reform.”

Wolf also recommended that Congress consider removing altogether the State Department waiver authority as it relates to aid to Egypt, since the State Department, without fail and irrespective of changes on the ground, uses the waiver.

Wolf said The U.S. embassy should actively seek to cultivate relationships with the liberal, democratic Egyptian opposition groups and individuals, human rights groups, Coptic Christians and other key civil society actors.

“By most accounts, U.S. policy has not evolved to meet the new realities in Egypt,” Wolf said. “We have embraced the Morsi government the same way we embraced the Mubarak government to the detriment of other elements of Egyptian civil society – elements with which we have a natural affinity. While such groups may not take the reins of leadership in the near future, they are central to the Egyptian democratic experiment, and we can bolster their standing and effectiveness if we take the long-term view. In this same vein, aid to Egypt should once again benefit Egyptian civil society, not simply the military and economy.”

Wolf said congressional delegations traveling to Egypt should meet with activists, NGOs and Christian leaders to better understand what is happening on the ground and to hear firsthand the perception of the United States’ support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

The full report can be found here.

Al Azhar Scholar: Christian Copts Will Pay Jizya

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Dr. Mahmoud Shu’ban

Dr. Mahmoud Shu’ban

By Raymond Ibrahim:

During a recent interview, Dr. Mahmoud Shu‘ban, a professor at Al Azhar University, made clear that the Copts, Egypt’s Christian minority, will pay the jizya—what is often referred to in the West as an Islamic “poll tax.” According to the Al Azhar professor, “If non-Muslims were to learn the meaning of ‘jizya,’ they would ask for it to be applied—and we will apply it, just like Islam commands us to.” His logic is that, if Christians pay the jizya, they would buy for themselves “protection,” hence why they themselves should want to pay it.

Most Western apologists for Islam also claim that jizya money was historically paid to protect conquered dhimmis, though they often imply protection from outside enemies, non-Muslims. In fact, the jizya was/is protection money from surrounding Muslims themselves—precisely Shu‘ban’s point: pay up and maybe your churches won’t be burned and your girls routinely abducted; because you are not paying, you are not protected from such things and have no right to complain.

Read more at Jihad Watch

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Coptic Activist: U.S. Needs to Stand for Freedom in Egypt

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Ashraf Ramelah

Ashraf Ramelah

IPT News:

News reports from Egypt focus on protests against the new Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government and other national political developments. But each week brings a new set of attacks on the country’s Christian minority, attacks that often are overlooked by western media

Just this week, Muslims tried to block expansion of a Coptic church. And priests from another church reportedly were threatened with death if they didn’t convert to Islam. The previous week, a Coptic church was set on fire after a neighbor complained about noise during prayer services.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism spoke with Ashraf Ramelah about the challenges facing Egypt’s Coptic Christian population, which is estimated at about 10 percent of the country’s 85 million people.

Ramelah, an Egyptian native, founded Voice of the Copts in 2007 to raise awareness of persecution against Christians and fight for “freedom of religion, cultural identity and women’s rights.”

Go to IPT to view the video of the interview

 

Muslim beheads two Coptic Christians in Koranic ritual – in New Jersey!

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Yusuf Ibrahim

Yusuf Ibrahim

BY :

Here we have another “silent” story about Islamic violence in our country with nary a word from the mainstream media about it. The country goes gaga over a beautiful model’s murder at the hands of an international legless sports hero, but the beheading of two Egyptian Coptic Christian men in New Jersey by a Muslim gets a pass. Why?

Simple. The gruesome beheading invokes the Muslim ritual, called for in the Koran. Koranic verse 8:12 reads: “I will instill terror into the hearts of unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingers off.”

Our media shuts its eyes, turns its head and stuffs its ears when anything negative about the primitive actions of Muslim occur.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, who brutally slaughtered 13 of his fellow troops at Fort Hood, Texas, and wounded 22 others, was said to have shouted, “Allahu Akhbar”  during his shooting spree. He was just following Koranic orders to kill infidels. By the way, “Allahu Akhbar” is Arabic for “God is great.” The Pentagon’s “thorough” investigation into Hasan’s murderous assault never mentioned Islam, the Koran or the major’s religion in its final report. It was considered a workplace act of violence.

We are giving Islamic radicals a free pass to ritually murder those considered infidels, or non-believers in “the religion of peace,” and Muslims considered violators of Islam. May God help us!

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Rebels at the Gates: Egypt rebounds again

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By

Remember Remember the 4th of December when the president of Egypt flees for his life from the Palace backdoors guarded by his motorcade and armed guards. We have witnessed the first incumbent and elected president in modern day Egyptian history flees the scene and his palace after just 6 months of his election. Egyptians once more rise again and prove to the whole world that they will not stand idle in face of creating new modern day fascism in Egypt.

Protest outside Egypt Presidential Palace

Protest outside Egypt Presidential Palace

Remember Remember the 5th of December when the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists hordes attacked the peaceful encampment around the palace and bashed women and men indiscriminately with machetes, sticks and firearms. The massacre that shocked the nation turned the peaceful Cairo’s neighbourhood of Heliopolis into a battle zone for the first time in its 100 year’s history.

Remember Remember the 7th of December when the freedom fighters of Egypt rallied again in most Egyptian cities to protest against Morsi’s dictatorial regime and his Islamists militias and made sure their voices are heard against the voices of fascism and tyranny.

Remember Remember the 25th of December when the news of the approval of a new illegitimate constitution is approved and a day that witnessed Egypt entering the year 2013 with a constitution befitting a small European medieval kingdom.

Morsi’s assault against the Egyptian state:

Morsi’s regime has caused a path of destruction in Egypt which descended into unprecedented state of chaos that was hardly been witnessed in its modern history and here is in short a summary of his misdeeds:

1-Since he was sworn in, Morsi has applied a gloves-are-off tactic against anyone or any entity that he or his obscure Muslim Brotherhood group deem threatening to their plans for full control of the Egyptian state. Morsi started by the army commanders and devised the most theatrical of maneuvers to oust SCAF from the scene and capitalized on the murder of 16 innocent Egyptian soldiers and blamed it entirely on the army commanders despite evidence leads that among the assailants are those who he already pardoned by presidential decree just days before the attack from prison sentences and his allies Hamas in Gaza knows their whereabouts and their identities.

Morsi capitalized on the devastating incident and ousted both Field Marshall Tantawi and Deputy Anan in a constitutional declaration that overrides the one SCAF have issued prior to the announcement of the Presidential elections results. He overturned the same declaration he was sworn in upon and ironically this move was applauded naively by the many figures of the opposition. The same opposition that gullibly believed that Morsi is attempting to oust any form of military intervention in the political spectrum and they supported that move while what was Morsi really attempting was consolidating his power as it will be explained further.

2-The second assault was on the judiciary system in the form of a new edict (Constitutional declaration) through which Morsi unconstitutionally appointing a new General Attorney Mostafa Talaat and ousted illegitimately the former one Adbel Mageed Mahmoud in a feat that was never done in the history of Egyptian Judiciary system yet he still possess the audacity to claim that he is keen on the separation of powers on one hand and on the other hand destroying the fabric of the Egyptian Judiciary system and the prestigious Egyptian Constitutional Court. Morsi himself accused members of the Constitutional court of plotting against him despite the fact that without their approval of presidential elections’ results he won’t be in the position he is now.

3-The third assault was on the Media starting by shutting down several networks Like Dream TV and El Faraeen owned by anchor Tawfik Okasha.At the same down Curbing down the freedom of expression became the popular sport for the Presidential office that started to sue newspapers for criticizing the president. It is becoming a popular sport of the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies figure to wage verbal wars on all the opposition and label them as heretics, atheists and infidels for criticizing the Islamists. At the same time witch hunting almost every liberal media anchor on the scene by lawsuits and verbal defamation and occasionally physical violence.

4-  Breaking his election campaign promise. Morsi insisted on keeping the controversial Islamist dominated constitution writing committee and despite the resignations from all opposition figures and the Christian churches, he insisted on going forward through the referendum to avoid an expected constitutional court ruling against this illegitimate committee. For the first time in history a committee that were given 2 months to discuss the constitution decided to wrap it all up in 48 hours and present it to the president to order a new referendum within two weeks.

Egypt protest

5-For the first time in Egyptian Modern history the approved new constitution imposes a new reality and identity on the Egyptian state and threatens to turn the Egyptian national state into an Islamic state foregoing all the basic principles of nationhood and Egyptian national pride that ruled Egypt for thousands of years. By enacting this new constitution Morsi list of unfulfilled election campaign promises’ receives a new addition, whereby he promised to reshuffle and reselect a new balance constitution writing commission which he ignored to do and in fact it was his Islamists alliance who wrote the entire constitution. This constitution is the most divisive, anti-human rights and sectarian constitution ever written in Egypt’s modern history and it definitely fails to protect personal freedoms and the rights of Christians and other minorities.

6-Meanwhile, the Sinai Peninsula is in total chaos since Morsi took power. Islamist militants are dominating villages and towns in the North of Sinai and the army efforts in that area are curbed by the tight relation between Hamas and the President’s own Muslim Brotherhood being their franchise in Gaza. Weapons and other goods are still smuggled daily from and to Gaza with Hamas controlling these tunnels across the border. Aside from the rampage caused by the Militants which resulted in the Killing of 16 Egyptian soldier in one terrorist attack in August, the same militant groups are terrorizing the Christians in North of Sinai and many families had to evacuate their homes in fear for their lives. On Morsi’s watch Egypt is losing grip on its own territories as a result of political maneuvers by the current regime. Shouldn’t the nation take further steps in protecting its own territory, Egypt will lose grip eventually on Sinai and it will turn into an uncontrollable territory like Waziristan in Pakistan.

Read more at WSN

 is a freelance Journalist and Egyptian Businessman. Egyptian nationalist with Libertarian capitalist views. Middle East and world news analyst.

See also:

Egypt’s Only Hope: Freedom Fighters by Ashraf Ramelah, founder and president of Voice of the Copts, a human rights  organization drawing attention to the suffering of Coptic Christians in Egypt and educating as to the chilling effect of Sharia (Islamic law).   

Egyptian Cleric Threatens Christian Copts with Genocide

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By Raymond Ibrahim

Islamic leaders continue to portray the popular protests against President Morsi and his recently passed Sharia-heavy constitution as products of Egypt’s Christians. Recently, Muslim Brotherhood leader Safwat Hegazy said in an open rally, as captured on video:

A message to the church of Egypt, from an Egyptian Muslim: I tell the church — by Allah, and again, by Allah — if you conspire and unite with the remnants [opposition] to bring Morsi down, that will be another matter…. our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Muhammad Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him.”

Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim

More recently, Dr. Wagdi Ghoneim — who earlier praised Allah for the death of the late Coptic Pope Shenouda, cursing him to hell and damnation on video — made another video, entitled, “A Notice and Warning to the Crusaders in Egypt,” a reference to the nation’s Copts, which he began by saying, “You are playing with fire in Egypt, I swear, the first people to be burned by the fire are you [Copts].” The video was made in the context of the Tahrir protests against Morsi: Islamic leaders, such as Hegazy and Ghoneim, seek to portray the Copts as dominant elements in those protests; according to them, no real Muslim would participate. Ghoneim even went on to say that most of the people at the protests were Copts, “and we know you hid your [wrist] crosses by lowering your sleeves.”

The heart of Ghoneim’s message was genocidal: “The day Egyptians — and I don’t even mean the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafis, regular Egyptians — feel that you are against them, you will be wiped off the face of the earth. I’m warning you now: do not play with fire!”

Along with trying to incite Egypt’s Muslims against the Copts, and threatening them with annihilation, Ghoneim made other telling assertions, including:

  • Addressing the Christians of Egypt as “Crusaders,” once again showing Islam’s simplistic, black-and-white vision, which clumps all Christians — of all nations, past and present, regardless of historical context and denomination — as one, in accordance with an Islamic tradition that states “All infidels are one religion.”
  • Comparing Christian Copts to animals: “Respect yourselves and live with us and we will protect you… Why?… because Allah has forbidden me to be cruel to animals. I’m not trying to compare you to animals … but if I am not cruel to animals or plants, shall I be cruel to a soul created by Allah? You are an infidel in Allah’s sight — and it is for him to judge you. However, when you live in my country, it is forbidden for me to be unjust to you — but that doesn’t mean we are equal. No, oh no.”
  • Telling Copts: “I want to remind you that Egypt is a Muslim country…. if you don’t like the Muslim Sharia, you have eight countries that have a Cross on their flag [in Europe], so go to them. However, if you want to stay here in Egypt with us, know your place and be respectful. You already have all your rights — by Allah, even more than Muslims… No one investigates your homes, no one investigates your churches. In fact, in the past, the Islamic groups used to fake their IDs and put Christian names on them when they would go out for [jihadi] operations, so that when the police would catch them, they would see they are Christians and be left alone.” Ghoneim misses the irony of what he says: Police know that Egyptian Christians are not going to engage in terror; Egyptian Muslims are suspect.
  • Saying, in mocking tones, towards the end: “What do you think — that America will protect you? Let’s be very clear, America will not protect you. If so, it would have protected the Christians of Iraq when they were being butchered!” — a reference to the fact that, after the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein, half of Iraq’s Christian population has either been butchered or fled the nation, and all under U.S. auspices.
  • Claiming that the Copts are only four million while the Muslims are 85 million — even as Coptic Orthodox Church registries maintain that there are more than 15 million Copts, and most outside analysts say 10 million, in Egypt— and adding that Morsi was only being nice by saying, as he did during one of his speeches: “There are no minorities in Egypt.” Ghoneim fails to explain, if Copts are so few — four million compared to 85 million — how could they be so influential, and flood the Tahrir protests with such large numbers?
  • Mocking new Coptic Pope Tawadros—not surprising considering his great hate for the former Pope—by claiming that the new Pope urged Copts to protest; that the new Pope wants to see Morsi and Sharia law fall, and by adding, “Is it not enough that you have all those monasteries?”

 

Watch Raymond Ibrahim talk with Robert Spencer about what’s going on in Egypt, the plight of Coptic Christians, Islamic Revivalism, the Muslim Brotherhood and more: