It’s a Million-Copt March!
Copts are cool.
Crucifying the copts
Mideast Christians under siege
Last Updated: 12:41 AM, December 23, 2010
It’s shaping up to be a bad Christmas for one of the oldest Christian sects in the Middle East, where Christianity was born — and an even bleaker future for Egyptian Copts.
Police fired live ammunition last month at Copts protesting the government-halted construction of a house of worship, the Church of the Virgin Mary and Saint Michael Archangel, supposedly for failure to acquire the proper permits. At least 100 demonstrators were arrested, 60 injured — and a 19-year-old Christian student died from a gunshot wound. The anger quickly spilled to émigré Coptic communities from Australia to Europe to midtown Manhattan.
The attack on Egypt’s Christians go far beyond denial of church permits, said Magda Gendy, who participated in the peaceful East Side demonstration along with thousands of other Egyptian-American Copts last week. Increasingly, Christian girls aged 12 to 16 are being kidnapped, forced to marry Muslim men and convert to the religion of their “husbands,” she told me.
But while Copts — 10 percent of Egypt’s mostly Muslim population of 80 million — have always suffered discrimination, this incident presents a new and dangerous turn.
“Before, it used to be just the Muslims” who attacked their Christian neighbors, Gendy said. “Now it’s the government.” Copts blame the district’s governor, Sayyed Abdel Aziz, a former army general.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/crucifying_the_copts_ajujE1ZRpw7wEAZ85MumoN#ixzz1LWX9fWRq
“Before, it used to be just the Muslims” who attacked their Christian neighbors, Gendy said. “Now it’s the government.” Copts blame the district’s governor, Sayyed Abdel Aziz, a former army general.
The UN? It falls on deaf ears!