Free Republic

Non-Arab and/or non-Muslims in the "Arab" worldOne key element missing from the discussion is the question of non-Arab and/or non-Muslims in the "Arab" world.  The Arab nationalists have succeeded in establishing some 23 non-democratic, ethnically (Arab) and religiously (Islam) defined nation-states in over 1 million square miles of territory, often at the expense of non-Arabs, such as the Kurds (Muslims, non-Arabs), Assyrians (Christians, non-Arabs), Copts (Christians, non-Arabs), southern Sudanese (Christian and pagan non-Arabs), Maronite Lebanese (Christian and mostly identified with their Phoenician ancestors) and Mizrahi Jews.  Arab nationalist ideology claims all this territory exclusively as "Arab" despite the legitimate claims...

Racist Arabism & fascist Islamism: Anti-Copt The word Copt is an English word taken from the Arabic word Gibt or Gypt. The Arabs after their conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. called the indigenous population of Egypt as Gypt from the Greek word Egyptos or Egypt. The Greek word Egyptos came from the ancient Egyptian words Ha-Ka-Ptah... The word Copt or Coptic simply means Egyptian, however the Muslim population of Egypt calls themselves Arabs. In contemporary usage, the word Copt or Coptic refers to the Christian population of Egypt. The Arab's oppression led the Copts to several rebellions, [source], Coptic:...

A crowd of angry Muslims quickly gathered, threw stones at the building and burned banners that said, ‘‘No to the church.’’ They tried to storm the gates, clashed with police and chanted, ‘‘The church has fallen, the priest is dead,’’ according to witnesses. Tempers are flaring as Islamic conservatism gains ground and Christians grow increasingly resentful about discrimination by the Muslim majority. The Ain Shams incident highlights that even in Cairo — seen as more cosmopolitan in its sectarian relations than the rural south — suspicions run between the communities. Muslim and Christian neighbors also are competing over who can...

Pope Shenuda III, Head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, seen here in January 2008. Shenuda III One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying...

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros -- named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid -- has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries -- mostly Muslim converts -- he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance -- free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become...

Washington DC, Oct. 04, 2006 (CNA) - The American Coptic Union (ACU) is urging Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the continued human rights abuses of Coptic Christians in Egypt during her upcoming meeting with the Egyptian government. The ACU, which is a nonprofit organization that represents Coptic people in the U.S. and Egypt, claims violations against the Copts have been escalating since Sept. 11, 2001, and the Egyptian government has not responded with any protection. The ACU claims Islamic terrorists and the Egyptian State Security Investigation authority continue to attack and persecute the Copts. “The daily horrors of...

Many have recently wondered about the evident concern of the Copts over the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory of 88 seats in the last parliamentary elections in Egypt. Why, exactly, are the Copts so upset, and would they stand against democracy if it works in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood? Actually, the Copts are not the only ones to have serious misgivings about this latest development in Egypt’s political life; women, liberals, civil society supporters, leftists, and other advocates of democracy share the same sentiment. The champions of civil society are haunted by the nightmarish vision of a religious government, and it...

Cops say McDonald murdered, then went on with life upstairs good worker, boss says Monday, March 07, 2005 By Brian Donohue Newhouse News Service Edward McDonald, 25, was questioned by investigators on Jan. 14, the morning police found his landlord, his wife and their two daughters stabbed to death in their Jersey City Heights home. After the interview, McDonald walked out of the prosecutor's office - and coolly past the brother of the slain woman, Ayman Garas, who was entering the building to meet with detectives. On Friday, McDonald and Hamilton Sanchez, 30, pleaded not guilty to four counts of...

Two Charged in N.J. Family Slaying March 04, 2005 JERSEY CITY, N.J. — The upstairs tenant of an Egyptian Christian family found slain in their home in January and another man have been charged in the killings, and authorities said Friday the motive was robbery, not religious fanaticism. Two men already on parole for drug offenses pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder in the Jan. 11 killing of the Armanious family (search), which had caused tension between Christians and Muslims in New Jersey. Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above the Armanious family, and Hamilton Sanchez,...

FBI pick up a former tenant of the home. He used their ATM card.

During the two-day period that a brutally slain Jersey City family of four lay dead in their bloody Oakland Avenue apartment, a man was already using their bank card to raid their accounts at nearby ATMs on Central Avenue and Kennedy Boulevard - and police have video of the withdrawals, officials said yesterday. "We don't know at this point where the person resides, but it could be someone from Jersey City," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said. "The pattern of the ATM locations speaks for itself, and I don't think we need significant analysis of that." DeFazio said reviews of...

Coptic trove Luxor's west bank was the site of a significant find, reports Nevine El-Aref In Al-Gurna where several excavation missions are probing for more Ancient Egyptian treasures under the sand, a team from the Polish Centre for Mediterranean Archaeology has stumbled on a major Coptic trove buried under the remains of a sixth-century monastery located in front of a Middle Kingdom tomb. Excavators unearthed two papyri books with Coptic text along with a set of parchments placed between two wooden labels as well as Coptic ostraca, pottery fragments and textiles. The head of the team, Tomaz Gorecki, said the...

Downplaying of radical Islamic ritual murder of Christian Egyptian in Jersey City, N.J. is part of a much wider problem --- one that's been ongoing for years Connecting the dots

The police seem to have no leads in the case of the Armanious family—husband, Hossam, 47, wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their daughters Monica, 8, and Sylvia, 15— who were found murdered in their Jersey City home last month, but the family's Coptic-Christian co-religionists and their supporters have no doubts. They are certain it was the work of Muslim extremists. Some say the Islamist murderers received support from the Egyptian government. One pro-Israel leader of the Coptic community insists compromised Coptic clergymen bear their share of guilt, too. Each member of the family was bound and gagged before their throats...

On America's Most Wanted, spotlight tonight on: Hossam Armanious, his wife Amal and their daughters, Sylvia, 15 and Monica, 9 were found murdered in their Jersey City, New Jersey home. They had been tied up, gagged and stabbed to death. Police are trying to determine if this was a hate crime, as the family were devout Coptic Christians. Police believe that more than one person may have been involved in the four homicides.

Relatives Of Slain NJ Family Meet With FBI, Lawmakers Hudson County Prosecutors Office Leading Investigation Feb 15, 2005 6:31 pm US/Eastern NEW YORK (CBS) Relatives of a slain New Jersey family took their demands for justice to the capital on Tuesday. With the suspect or suspects still on the loose, family members came to ask federal authorities to play a major role in this investigation. "Up to this moment, we still suffer and we're going to suffer, especially on occasions when we get together," says Ayman Garas, the victim's brother. Their desperate search for justice brought them together on Tuesday...

Relatives of Slain N.J. Family of Four Speak Out for First Time in Washington, D.C. Press Conference Thu Feb 10, 1:35 PM ET Contact: U.S. Copts Association, 202-737-3660 or copts@copts.com, Web: http://www.copts.com Relatives of the slain Armanious family of four will speak at their first press conference since the brutal murders on Tuesday, Feb. 15 at 3 p.m. at the National Press Club's Zenger Room in Washington, D.C. U.S. Copts Association president Michael Meunier will join the Armanious family's relatives in addressing the investigation's status and expressing the family's point of view on the horrific crime. The family will also...

Anyone following the investigation into the mid-January slaughter of the Armanious family (husband, wife, two young daughters), Copts living in Jersey City, N.J., knows who the presumptive suspects are: Islamists furious at a Christian Egyptian immigrant who dares engage in Internet polemics against Islam and who attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity.  The authorities, however, have blinded themselves to the extensive circumstantial evidence, insisting that “no facts at this point” substantiate a religious motive for the murders.Somehow, the prosecutor missed that all four members of this quiet family were savagely executed in the ritualistic Islamist way (multiple knife attacks and...

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- The FBI is trying to determine whether an Islamic Web site that tracked users of an online chat room had anything to do with the killings of a Christian Egyptian family. The site, barsomyat.com, is no longer online. But before it was shut down by its Minnesota hosting company, it reportedly featured photos of Hossam Armanious and his wife, Amal Garas, referring to him as a "filthy dog" and "his filthy wife," according to the New York Sun.

January 31, 2005 Christians on PalTalk Chat Service Tracked by Radical Islamic Web Site An explosive New York Sun article reprinted at the Counterterrorism blog. As you can see, I was consulted on this story, and I will be posting more about it momentarily: A radical Islamic Web site systematically tracks Christians on PalTalk.com, an Internet chat service on which a New Jersey man received a death threat two months before he and his family were murdered. The password protected Arabic Web site, at the address www.barsomyat.com, features pictures and information about Christians who have been particularly active in debating...