Displaying items by tag: Egypt

Egyptian religious scholars want an award-winning film, ‘The Guest’, banned. The story of a daughter’s handsome suitor being her father’s worst nightmare unfolds on the silver screen as a conflict between radical Islam and deductive logic. Many Egyptians may not see the psychological thriller if a Cairo court decides on 23 February that it should be banned for misrepresenting Islam. The film’s dialogues focus on religion’s role in society and address hijabs, inter-faith marriages, and women’s role. The plot, which features a Christian wife and mother, takes on the credibility of sheikhs and political Islam. Religious figures have complained that the film ‘promotes inaccurate Islamic information’.

Servicemen in the Sinai peninsula are ill-equipped and under-trained. Since the insurgency began, Egypt's propaganda narrative has portrayed its fighters as religious, disciplined, ‘born to kill’ fighting machines. Men aged 18 to 30 must serve in the military for eighteen months, followed by a nine-year obligation to serve if called for duty. IS militants are trained in guerrilla and desert warfare and house-to-house combat, and have military experience in Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Egypt’s fighting forces are conscripts with 45 days in boot camp. Moataz, a medic now discharged from military duty, still has nightmares about his service and visits a psychiatrist. He said, ‘Body parts were everywhere in a scene that I will never forget. The rest of the bodies were firstly wounded and then executed by gunfire. Some bodies had more than 20 bullets in their heads. To us and many other conscripts, Sinai was our Vietnam.’

Recent weeks have seen answered prayer and God’s protection over His people. Pakistan’s police foiled an attack on Christmas worship in Karachi. A police officer tragically lost his life when the bomb he was defusing detonated outside a Cairo church, but his brave intervention thwarted Islamist plans to take many more lives a few days before Orthodox Christians’ Christmas Day. Iraq’s government made a landmark announcement declaring Christmas Day a national holiday for all Iraqis, wishing its Christian citizens a ‘happy Christmas’. Meanwhile, an anti-Christian tirade by the Grand Mufti fell flat when the country’s Sunni authority condemned it as irrational and offensive, pointing out that Christians don’t try to prevent Muslim celebrations. In Egypt, the Ministry of Justice produced a remarkable animated public information video cautioning Muslims not to ‘fall prey to the extremists’, and encouraged them to extend greetings to their Christian neighbours during the Christmas holidays.

Wielding an iron bar in one hand and holding a Quran in the other, a 22-year-old Muslim extremist shouting ‘Allahu Akbar - death to the apostates’ broke into an eastern Cairo church in an early morning attack on 11 November. He assaulted staff preparing bread for morning communion. After injuring two people with his weapon, he was overpowered by church members who restrained him until police arrived. He showed no remorse in police custody, shouting, ‘Give me your gun so I may kill them. If you don’t, you’d be an infidel like them.’ Egyptian churches are becoming targeted more frequently. On Palm Sunday 2017, suicide attacks on churches in Tanta and Alexandria claimed the lives of 50 and injured 90. Pray for the protection of all Christians from such attacks, especially at Christmas.

Five new reports - about Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Colombia and the Central African Republic - unmask the multiple domestic, societal and state dynamics used in the persecution of Christian women and girls in each country. When viewed individually, the tactics used - from subtle discrimination surrounding access to education, through to extreme violence - appear unrelated. But now each of these reports, by Open Doors International, catalogues the inter-related web of dynamics and tactics, and highlights the ‘domino’ impact of simultaneous persecuting events. The resulting picture is akin to the anguish caused by a thousand paper cuts, plus (all too often) much deeper wounds. While men often face much more obvious and public forms of pressure and persecution for their faith, women’s suffering is often in daily life. For further information from these reports, click the ‘More’ button.

A terrorist attack on three buses carrying Egyptian Christians left at least seven dead and 19 injured on 2 November. The buses were travelling to a well-known Christian historical site near Minya. Six of the seven who died came from the same extended family. A number of news outlets reported that ‘local IS affiliates’ have claimed responsibility for the attack. In a similar attack at the same place by IS in May 2017, 29 Christians were murdered.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published evidence suggesting that Egyptian security forces forcibly detained American taxi driver Khaled Hassan, an American-Egyptian dual citizen, and tortured him. Yet instead of supporting their call for the government to investigate, or even expressing concern, the state information service denied any wrongdoing and continues to undermine the work of HRW and similar groups. The National Security Agency seized Hassan in January and presented him to prosecutors in May. In the intervening months he was beaten, subjected to prolonged stress positions, tortured with electric shocks, and raped twice. Forensic experts reviewing photos of his wounds said they were consistent with torture. During his disappearance, Hassan’s family filed many complaints with the authorities but received no information on his whereabouts. Torture and enforced disappearance are crimes under international and Egyptian law.

IS terrorists have mounted a number of attacks on churches in Egypt in the last two years, but on 11 August tight security foiled an attempted suicide attack on a church in Mostorod, north of Cairo. Security guards stopped the attacker from entering the church grounds to target worshippers. The bomber then detonated his explosives about 250 metres from the church, killing himself and a passer-by. Egyptian security services subsequently made seven arrests in relation to the attack. At the time of writing, no organisation has claimed responsibility. Please pray for the friends and relatives of the deceased.

Recently the Egyptian army and police launched a comprehensive anti-terrorism operation in the Sinai peninsula ahead of the 26-28 March elections in which President al-Sisi will be running for a second term. A spokesman said intelligence information revealed that extremist groups were planning to carry out terrorist attacks across Egypt during the election, to erode citizens’ trust in the state’s ability to secure the country and to prevent them from casting their votes. Armed groups are concentrated in three cities, Rafah, Sheikh Zuweid and el-Arish, deep in the desert. Classes have been indefinitely suspended in all schools in the area. The roads linking north Sinai to the other governorates and the governorate cities to each other were closed, forcing residents to stay at home and making it difficult for university students to travel.

Ever since former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said he would run in the 2018 presidential election, many are speculating about his ability to win. Egypt’s religious institutions influence presidential candidates, and journalists supporting President al-Sisi have focused on the ties that Shafiq has with the Salafist Dawa Party and its political arm. The Salafi movement is ultra-conservative Sunni Islam. If Shafiq mobilises the only remaining influential religious blocs of Salafist Dawa and the Copts, his candidacy in the upcoming election might produce a repeat of 2012, when two strong candidates, Shafiq and Morsi, competed against each other. In those elections the Copts supported Shafiq out of fear that Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood would win. It is difficult for the largest Coptic bloc not to vote for al-Sisi, who they believe has protected them by overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood.