Church bells lead to Egypt clashes

BBC ^ | 02/10/2002

[scratchgolfer]

Church bells lead to Egypt clashes

Four people, including a policeman, have been injured in a village in southern Egypt following clashes between Christians and Muslims that broke out at the inauguration of a church.

Police reportedly cordoned off the village, near the town of Minya, after making several arrests.

The trouble is reported to have broken out after church bells rang out - in defiance of warnings by Muslims that they should remain silent.

Two years ago 23 people were killed in sectarian clashes Police sources said local Muslims tried to burn down the church and five houses of Coptic Christians living nearby.

A crowd of about 100 from the two communities then pelted each other with stones and some fired hunting rifles.

The four injured - three Muslims and one Copt - were reported to have been slightly hurt by shotgun pellets.

Rise in Islamic fervour

Sectarian tensions are known to flare up occasionally over the building of new churches.

Tension in Upper Egypt has been fuelled by the rise of Islamic militancy over the last 20 years.

There have been occasional flare-ups in the region, which is the most socially and economically deprived in the country.

Two years ago 23 Copts were killed in another Upper Egyptian village after a market dispute escalated into sectarian clashes.

Copts make up about 10% of Egypt's 70 million population.

The Egpytian Government says it is committed to equality between the two communities, but some Copts have argued that it needs to take firmer steps to prevent discrimination.

[crazykatz]

The devil hates the sound of Church bells and suffers miserably when they call believers to services...looks like he has fellow suffers.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The trouble is reported to have broken out after church bells rang out - in defiance of warnings by Muslims that they should remain silent."

Hmmmm--it is just fine for their mosques to install megawatt loudspeakers and pollute the noise spectrum with their whiny "calls to prayer", but it is not OK if Christian churches ring bells. But they assure us that the Moslem religion respects the "people of the book", and that Islam is a "religion of peace". Hypocrites!

[aristeides]

Even in secularist Turkey, I am reasonably sure that churches are not allowed to ring their bells. I don't know whether the prohibition is by law or not, but I never heard church bells ring during my many visits to the country. Despite centuries of persecution, a few Christian churches are left in Istanbul and Izmir, but they seem to be silent. And yes, I was sometimes deafened when I happened to be staying in a hotel too close to a mosque's loudspeakers.

[scouse]

Copts make up about 10% of Egypt's 70 million population.

The Copts were also there before there was such a thing as Islam.

[a_Turk]

Even in secularist Turkey, I am reasonably sure that churches are not allowed to ring their bells.

Don't know. Would not know why not. I'd let them ring their bells. What's the harm?

[aristeides]

The Moslems in Egypt are collaborators or descendants of collaborators with the Arab invaders. The Copts are the true Egyptians. Coptic, their liturgical language, which they no longer speak, is the most recent form of the Egyptian language. I have read that, as late as the time of the Crusades, a majority of the population of Egypt was still Christian.

I have also read that the Coptic Church, which is still monophysite (i.e., believing Christ only had one, divine nature,) adopted the monophysite heresy as a kind of nationalism in opposition to the Greek ruling class in Roman Egypt, which was orthodox Christian. I don't know if the evidence supports this view -- it could be 19th- and 20th-century scholars imposing their modes of thought on past evebts.

[FormerLib]

"It's often said that Islam is tolerant. But I know of no Islamic country that is tolerant. Islam only preaches tolerance in countries where it is in a minority." - German Cardinal Joachim Meisner to Bunte magazine, via CWNews.com, Berlin, November 14, 2001.

[VOA]

The Copts were also there before there was such a thing as Islam.

A Coptic Christian lady called into a radio show here in Los Angeles a few months ago.
Her basic message:
Muslims don't move into your country to be citizens of your county.
They move in to TAKE your country and make sure you become Muslim as well.

[CathyRyan]

They have their nerve getting b!tchy about church bells when they yodel(sp) five times a day.

[maestro]

The World Trade Center Memorial should include a TWO HUGE/TALL BELL TOWERS which bells ring aloud daily at every daylight hour!

[scouse]

That lady was correct. In fact most of those countries in the Middle East and North Africa were over-run by moslem armies.

[Longshanks]

church bells rang out - in defiance of warnings by Muslims

That's the spirit Copts! You have to respect a people that has survived so long in such a hostile environment.

[Centurion2000]

The trouble is reported to have broken out after church bells rang out - in defiance of warnings by Muslims that they should remain silent.

Gee, I wonder how they would react if we told them to stop that stupid muzzerain screaming in Arabic at dawn ??

Islam priests are sometimes no better than roosters.

[patent]

Good quote for you in aisle 9.

patent

[ArrogantBustard]

Church bells Muslim bigotry leads to Egypt clashes

There. Much better headline...

[willyone]

Well then by all means lets bring in a few million more. They and the Mexicans can fight over what remains of the US. Since most of the rest of us don't care enough to defend our way of life I guess we have lost the right to it.

[MarMema]

Muslims don't move into your country to be citizens of your county. They move in to TAKE your country and make sure you become Muslim as well.

This is a basic message that I think has been missed by most Americans. Immigration is a big part of the Islamic approach to a world-takeover.

"The Islamist movement makes no secret of its intentions to convert the West. Its propaganda, published in booklets sold in all European Islamic centers for the last thirty years, sets out its aim and the methods to achieve them. They include proselytism, conversion, marriage with logical women, and, above all, immigration."

immigration comment from here

[timestax]

INTOLERANT HYPOCRITS!!