Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

The following excerpts are from AINA:

  • Egypt's new interim government is doing nothing to prevent hate speech, which is inciting violence against Christians, a prominent Egyptian Catholic leader has said.
  • "The state is paying no attention to sermons coming out of the mosques, which are inciting Muslims against Christians," said Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak.
  • In a statement he said perpetrators involved in a wave of attacks on Christian institutions across the country since early July were not being apprehended, and those involved in the burning and destruction of churches should have been forced to repair them at their own expense and not at the cost of the state.
  • He said southern parts of the Minya governorate had seen some of the most severe anti-Christian violence so far, and that "people there are so extreme that they are threatening the Copts with expulsion from their homes".

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Coptic Catholic Leader: Egyptian Government is Not Stopping Hate Speech Against Christians

Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most

The following excerpts are from AINA:

  • Minority religious groups face the reality of targeted violence against them in the region
  • The leader of the Maronite Catholic Church has said that Christians are suffering the most from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
  • Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï said that the situation in the Middle East is worsening, and that 'whenever a conflict breaks out in the Middle East, whenever chaos ensues, Muslim groups attack the minority Christian community, as if they were always the scapegoat.'
  • The patriarch, whose church is in full communion with the Vatican, said Christians were 'paying the price' of outside interference in both Egypt and Syria.
  • "I have written to the Holy Father twice to describe what is happening. I appeal again to the Holy Father, who only talks about peace and reconciliation," said the Maronite leader, who was made a cardinal in 2012.
  • He also accused the international community of 'total silence' over Iraq, where he said 1.5 million Christians had fled in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall.

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Middle East, Holy Land Christians Are Suffering Most