Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria - Persecution of Christianity in Egypt in His Time

Persecution of Christianity in Egypt in His Time

Persecution against Christians during Pope Shenouda's reign was chiefly conducted by private individuals and organizations, especially radical Salafis, although the state continued to enforce long-standing discriminatory policies and engage in occasional Christian-baiting. Particularly in Upper Egypt, the rise in extremist Salafi groups such as the Gama'at Islamiya during the 1980s was accompanied by attacks on Copts and on Coptic churches. The police have been accused of siding with the attackers in some of these cases.

Hundreds of Christian Coptic girls have been kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam, as well as being victims of rape and forced marriage to Muslim men.

On Sunday 2 January 2000, at least 21 Christians were killed by Muslims in Al Kosheh in southern (Upper) Egypt. Christian properties were also burned.

On Sunday, 2 January 2000, 21 Coptic Christians in Kosheh village in Upper (southern) Egypt, 450 kilometers south of Cairo, were massacred by Salafists. Christian properties were also burned.. Later, a criminal court in Sohag governorate released all 89 defendants charged in the New Year's massacre in Kosheh without bail. Pope Shenouda III rejected the verdict openly, and told reporters, "We want to challenge this ruling. We don't accept it." As the court sentence could not be appealed, Pope Shenouda III said: "We will appeal this sentence before God."

In April 2006, one person was killed and twelve injured in simultaneous knife attacks on three Coptic churches in Alexandria.

In November 2008, several thousand Muslims attacked a Coptic church in a suburb of Cairo on the day of its inauguration, forcing 800 Coptic Christians to barricade themselves in.

In April 2009, two Christian men were shot dead and another was injured by Muslim men after an Easter vigil in the south of Egypt.

On 18 September 2009, a Muslim man called Osama Araban beheaded a Coptic Christian man in the village of Bagour, and injured 2 others in 2 different villages. He was arrested the following day.

On the eve of 7 January 2010, after the Eastern Christmas Mass finished (which finishes around midnight), Copts were going out of Mar-Yuhanna (St. John) church in Nag Hammadi city when three Muslim men in a car near the church opened fire killing 8 Christians and injuring another 10.

On New Year's Day 2011, just 20 minutes after midnight as Christians were leaving a Coptic Orthodox Church in the city of Alexandria after a New Year's Eve service a car bomb exploded in front of the Church killing more than 23 and injuring more than 75.

On 7 May 2011, an armed group of Islamists, including Salafists, attacked and set fire to two churches including Saint Menas Coptic Orthodox Christian Church and the Coptic Church of the Holy Virgin, in Cairo. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 12 people and more than 230 wounded. It is reported that the events were triggered by a mixed marriage between a Christian woman and a Muslim man.

Successive Egyptian governments have long hand in place laws that hampered the freedom of Christian worship and restricted the right to build or even renovate churches. They maintained and enforced an Ottoman era Hamayouni Decree restrictions on building or repairing churches. These governments also restricted Christians from senior government, diplomatic, military, and educational positions, and there has been increasing discrimination in the private sector. The government allowed various media outlets to attack Christianity and restricted Christians access to the state-controlled media to defent themselves or speak their minds.

Security agencies sporadically persecuted Muslim converts to Christianity. In Egypt the government does not officially recognize conversions from Islam to Christianity; because certain interfaith marriages are not allowed either, this prevents marriages between converts to Christianity and those born in Christian communities, and also results in the children of Christian converts being classified as Muslims and given a Muslim education.

Many colleges dictate quotas for Coptic students, often around 1 or 2% despite the group making up as much as 15% of the country's population. There is also a separate tax-funded education system called Al Azhar, catering to students from elementary to college level, which accepts no Christian Coptic students, teachers or administrators.