After we fumigate, they may return.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 10/17/2010 1:46:52 AM PDT by Cindy
NOTE The following text is a quote:
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Coptic Organization Warns of Violence Against Copts in Egypt
By Jeremy Reynalds Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service
EGYPT (ANS) -- Coptic Solidarity, a worldwide Coptic human rights organization, has issued an alarming warning.
The Oct. 14 statement says that the alarming upsurge of significant anti-Coptic activities over the recent weeks could eventually “degenerate into wholesale violence against the Copts and their spiritual leaders” in the upcoming volatile period of political changes in Egypt.
Reporting for the Assyrian International Agency (AINA), Mary Abdelmassih wrote that the National Election for the Egyptian People's Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, is slated for Nov. 29.
In addition, AINA reported, the presidential election is due in 2011, with the controversial issue of President Mubarak's youngest son Gamal, succeeding his father, hanging in the air.
AINA said the statement accuses the Egyptian authorities of having “chosen to remain silent, proving, yet again, that they may be trying to use Islamic radicalism as a means to channel against the Copts the escalating social discontent in the country.”
According to AINA, the Coptic Church has recently witnessed concerted incitement campaigns in the national media and by Islamic radicals. They vary from televised programs on Wahhabi-funded Islamic TV Channels to demonstrations against the Church and its pontiff Pope Shenouda III. The campaigns have been initiated from mosques all over Egypt.
AINA said the statement mentions the televised false accusations levied against the Church by leading Islamic figures on Sept. 15 and after, of “stocking arms and ammunition (imported from Israel) in their churches and monasteries” and of “preparing to wage war against Muslims.”
Copts were further accused of “inciting sectarian strife and seeking to have their own separate state in Egypt.”
AINA said Pope Shenouda, in his interviews of late Sept. on state-owned and private TV channels, expressed his concern over the ongoing situation. He dismissed such claims as illogical allegations thrown at the Church, adding that the only time a Copt would carry arms is “if he works in the police or the army.”
The pope continued to say that the doors of churches are open to state scrutiny. He also dismissed the rumors of a separate “Coptic State” on the lines of the expected division between north and south Sudan. “Copts live all over the country and it would not be feasible,” AINA reported he said.
“These preposterous accusations could have been easily refuted by the usually intrusive Egyptian authorities, but they have chosen to remain silent,” AINA reported the Coptic Solidarity statement read.
The statement also referred to the ten demonstrations carried out by Islamist mobs after Friday's prayers, targeting the Coptic Church, the Pope and Copts in general. “Several hate slogans, normally punishable under the laws, were shouted, with no action taken by the authorities.”
AINA said during these demonstrations, the latest on Oct. 8, the Islamists demanded the delivery of a priest's wife, who they insist had converted to Islam, and is hidden by the church. That’s contrary to affirmations the rumor was baseless, AINA added, including a certified video recording by the woman in question affirming her Christianity.
AINA reported that Al Azhar, the leading Islamic institution in Egypt, also denied earlier that the priest's wife ever converted to Islam. Nevertheless, demonstrations continued asking for her release. Church sources said that the woman and her 18- month-old toddler are staying at a women's home belonging to the church, “for fear over her safety from the Muslim mobs.”
Coptic Solidarity pointed out that although Christian and Jewish Holy Books are systematically ridiculed as being falsified, “a passing remark on a Koranic verse regarding the Crucifixion, made by a Coptic clergyman at an internal meeting on dogma, was denounced as ‘blasphemous.’” The remark, which was taken out of context, caused an uproar in Egypt.
AINA reported that the Pope himself publicly expressed regret over Muslim anger provoked by the clergyman's remarks.
The Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, a formal State body headed by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar condemned the remarks.
In a statement AINA said it pointed out that “Egypt was, according to its constitution, an Islamic State.” It added that “the citizenship rights of non-Muslims were conditional to their abiding by the Islamic Identity of the State,” thereby “reversing modern progress and downgrading the Copts to their formerly historical status of mere Dhimmis--suppressed and humbled non-Muslims living under the will of Islam,” according to the statement.
AIAN reported that Coptic Solidarity said Egyptian authorities and political leadership fully responsible, and demanded effective measures be taken immediately to abate this dangerous tide.
Members of Coptic Solidarity and a group of American experts will hold a press conference on Oct. 18 at the National Press Building in Washington to try and show the American public the expected risks on Copts in Egypt.
Time to leave Egypt. There are better places to live and worship.
Where are the Copt cops?
The religion of Peace , at it again.
I think My brain warranty has expired.
CC
After we fumigate, they may return.
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