Over 100 Coptic Christians were killed in 2017 in a wave of deadly attacks by militants belonging to, or inspired by, the Islamic State group, which has vowed to “wipe them out”. Egypt’s Copts, who account for around 10 per cent of the population, were also targeted in 2013, after they were perceived as supporting the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government. Scores of churches across the country were attacked and burned.
During Hegazy’s periods of incarceration, he was subject to different forms of abuse.World Watch Monitor Egyptian lawyer Karam Ghobrial was clearly distraught as he talked about the saga both he and his client, once Muslim-turned-Christian Mohamed Hegazy, have endured over the past month. That was before Hegazy – the […]
Eight Christian homes were attacked and an equal number of Copts were detained after Muslims in an Egyptian village went on a rampage following rumours of a house church being built. The attack last week in Saft el-Khirsa (180km south of Cairo) trails more than a dozen others that have, […]
Egypt’s Pope Tawadros II made a heartfelt plea on Wednesday (20 July) on behalf of his country’s Coptic minority which has suffered in excess of 12 violent incidents in the last two months. Shifting the venue of his weekly sermon from the downtown Cathedral of Abbasia to the historic ‘hanging […]
Since May 2016, Egypt’s Christians have suffered multiple attacks. Reflecting what most Copts see as the country turning a blind eye to increased violence against its Christian minority, the Coptic Church’s Bishop Makarius tweeted on 17 July “reminding” president Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi that Copts “are Egyptian citizens”, and that his diocese […]
One Christian was killed and three others were injured in an assault at a Coptic priest’s family home, said a statement by the Diocese of Minya, 240km south of Cairo. “The family of two priests of Minya were subject to assault involving clubs and knives,” said the statement about the […]
An Egyptian bishop has called for an end to discrimination against the country’s Christians, urging the government to do more to control the situation in villages across the country. “We have to recognise everyone in Egypt as citizens of equal rights and obligations,” said Bishop Makarius in an Arabic interview […]
The reason why a 44-year-old government employee stabbed a local priest’s daughter outside a church in southern Egypt “remains unknown”, according to police sources. Lucia Murad, 14, survived a stab in the neck last weekend by a man identified by Watani only as “Muhammad T.E” in the bishopric of Sohag, 460km south […]
Angry Muslims set fire to four Coptic homes in the Minya village of Koum al-Loufi, about 230km south of Cairo, suspecting a house would be turned into a church. According to Coptic news site Wataninet, two Copts, Ashraf Khalaf and his brother Ibrahim Khalaf, were in the process of building […]
A Coptic Orthodox priest was shot dead yesterday morning (30 June) in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by Islamist militants. Fr. Raphael Moussa, 46, was shot four times in the head from a passing taxi as he stood next to his car in Arish, the capital of northern Sinai. The priest was […]
The anti-Christian crowd welcomed the arrival of the police to their slum village of al-Bayda-1World Watch Monitor Although the number of casualties may not cross the world-attention threshold, the story of what happened in al-Bayda-1, a settlement outside Alexandria, is indicative of a pattern faced by minority Christians in […]