![\"Entryway](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/276\/2013\/05\/st-mark-coptic-cathedral.jpg\" "\\"st")
<\/a>Christians in Egypt suffer amid a \u201cclimate of impunity,\u201d according to the U.S. State Department\u2019s newly released International Religious Freedom Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite word of positive developments \u2014 including prosecution for the murder of a Coptic man and occasionally increased police security for threatened Copts \u2014 the meager gains hardly diminish the unimaginable threats regularly faced by believers in one of the world\u2019s oldest bodies of Christians.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile recognized and unrecognized religious minorities mostly worshiped without harassment,\u201d said the IRFR, \u201cthe government generally failed to prevent, investigate, or prosecute crimes against members of religious minority groups, especially Coptic Christians, which fostered a climate of impunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Christians regularly face obstacles building or repairing churches because of discrimination, according to the report. They endure the indignity of meaningless \u201creconciliation sessions\u201d following victimization, while Muslim aggressors go unprosecuted. They are forced to relocate for fear of attacks by Muslim neighbors. They suffer mob violence and destruction of their property with insufficient help from police.<\/p>\n Most recently, a church west of Alexandria was attacked by a mob throwing Molotov cocktails. According to a report<\/a> by the Assyrian International News Agency, attackers shouted \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d while launching bricks and firing birdshot into crowds of Christians. Several Copts were wounded. One supposedly \u201cdied of fright,\u201d according to the police report, though his family said his body was heavily bruised and riddled with birdshot.<\/p>\n Authorities said the riot was provoked when a Coptic man tried peering into the apartment window of a Muslim woman \u2014 an offense evidently worthy of mass destruction.<\/p>\n Less than a week prior, another church was attacked in the village of Menbal. Muslims rushed the building, destroyed the interior, and assaulted a parishioner. \u201cThe mob then went along the streets looting and destroying all Coptic-owned businesses and pharmacies and torching cars,\u201d reported AINA. \u201cThe Copts were also threatened to be expelled from the village. According to witnesses, any Copt who was met by the mob in the street was beaten up.\u201d<\/p>\n Per the IRFR, police are often slow to move in these cases, either to intervene or prosecute after the fact. Video of the April 7 assault on St. Mark\u2019s Coptic Cathedral in Cairo even showed<\/a> one officer helping attackers.<\/p>\n \u201c[Muslim] Citizens also filed more cases than in previous years against Christians, accusing them of blasphemy or denigrating Islam,\u201d according to IRFR. Whereas these charges were rarely pursued under the Mubarak regime, they are prosecuted with aplomb today, and blasphemy codes are increasingly wielded as weapons against Christians, according to Ishak Ibrahim of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.<\/p>\n \u201cAn EIPR study to be released at the end of this month found that 41 percent of blasphemy cases taken to court from Jan. 25, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012, were filed against Christians, who make up only about 10 percent of Egypt\u2019s population,\u201d reports<\/a> Morning Star News, something which we looked at here<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n Tellingly, \u201c[o]f the 36 blasphemy cases brought to court, only one case was filed against someone for blaspheming Christianity \u2014 in spite of a near-constant din of insults by the nation\u2019s religious leaders against Christians and Christianity on Egypt\u2019s television and radio airwaves.\u201d And that solitary case was later dropped.<\/p>\n Despite protests inside Egypt and advocacy abroad<\/a>, the mood is decisively against Copts and other religious minorities. Journalist Rayyan Al-Shawaf speaks<\/a> of widespread \u201canti-Coptic stereotypes among ordinary Muslims\u201d \u2014 not just radicals \u2014 \u201cthe sort that depict Copts as treacherous manipulators of the economy, and the Coptic Orthodox Church as a sinister and disloyal institution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cManipulators of the economy\u201d is reminiscent of German stereotypes against the country\u2019s Jewish minority in the 1930s. So is the rhetoric of imaginary power and influence. Islamists like Mohamed El-Zawahiri, brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman El-Zawahiri, for instance, make the preposterous claim<\/a> that Copts are close to \u201ctriumph\u201d because the new government has failed to effectively institute Sharia.<\/p>\n It must be an rather unsatisfying victory for the abused believers in jail on fabricated charges, in hospitals because of Muslim violence, or in graves because of police indifference and contempt. All the more because their oppressors have apparently failed to oppress them enough.<\/p>\n For a thorough report on Christian persecution in Egypt and other hotspots like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, see the recent book from Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, and Nina Shea, Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians<\/a><\/em>. And for up-to-the-minute coverage, see Marshall, Gilbert, and Shea\u2019s news aggregator, PersecutionReport.org<\/a>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christians in Egypt suffer amid a \u201cclimate of impunity,\u201d according to the U.S. State Department\u2019s newly released International Religious Freedom Report. Despite word of positive developments \u2014 including prosecution for the murder of a Coptic man and occasionally increased police security for threatened Copts \u2014 the meager gains hardly diminish the unimaginable threats regularly faced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1270,"featured_media":5860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[915,761,762,802,524],"class_list":["post-5859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-life","tag-al-qaeda","tag-coptic-church","tag-egypt","tag-muslim-brotherhood","tag-persecution"],"yoast_head":"\nTargets of mob violence<\/h2>\n
Trumped up charges a growing problem<\/h2>\n
Prevalent anti-Christian mood<\/h2>\n
\n
Side note: Anti-persecution resources<\/h3>\n