Displaying items by tag: Cairo

In 2018 Rami Kamil, a prominent human rights activist, joined a UN fact-finding visit to investigate the situation of members of the Coptic community who had been displaced from their homes following sectarian incidents. On 23 November he was arrested: the police refused to allow him to change his clothes, carry his medications, or speak to a lawyer. They confiscated his laptop, mobile phone, camera, and books, and took him to an unknown location, where he underwent intensive physical and psychological interrogation. He later appeared before the state security prosecution without legal representation, and was given fifteen days’ pre-trial detention. He was accused of joining a terrorist organisation, receiving foreign funding, disturbing public order, inciting the public against the state, and using social media to provoke tensions between Muslims and Christians.

Four men have been arrested in connection with the suicide attack at the St Peter and St Paul church in Cairo last month, which killed 28 people and injured over 40. Eleven people are still in the hospital. Egypt's Interior Ministry says one of the four men arrested has links to the Muslim Brotherhood, though the group has denied any involvement. Hours after the attack, the terror group IS said one of its soldiers, named Abu Abdallah-al-Masri, was responsible for carrying out the attack, the worst on Egypt's Coptic Christian community since 2011. Despite this claim by IS, Egypt appears eager to pin the blame on the outlawed Brotherhood. Damage to the church was repaired just before 7 January, the day Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas. The renovations were undertaken by Egypt's army under orders of president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, who has promised to rebuild all churches that have been destroyed or damaged since 2013.