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.
Today, 16 December, is the date set for the signing of a UN-facilitated agreement on forming a new national unity government in Libya. Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the country has been engulfed by conflicts between various coalitions of armed groups. The country is split between an […]
A Coptic Orthodox church destroyed by Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers in August 2013 has been rebuilt by the Egyptian army. St Theodore’s church in the Upper Egypt city of Minya was destroyed by Islamist extremists after the Muslim Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi, was deposed from the Egyptian Presidency. In retaliation for […]
Bishoy Garas has always maintained his Facebook profile was hackedWorld Watch Monitor An Egyptian Christian, jailed for 38 months on unsubstantiated charges, has had his expected acquittal delayed again to February next year, his lawyer said. Bishoy Garas was sentenced to six years in prison from September 2012 for offending […]
Egyptian police raided Sat-7 channel’s Cairo offices on Oct. 10, confiscating equipment and briefly detaining the pioneer Arabic Christian broadcaster’s country office director. Detained for hours before being released, director Farid Samir faces possible charges related to operating a satellite TV channel “without the necessary licenses,” a press release by […]
A church commemorating the beheading of 20 Coptic Christians and one Ghanaian by the Islamic State in Libya has finally received the go-ahead by government authorities, seven months after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi ordered its construction. Coptic newspaper Watani quoted local priest Fr. Maqar Eissa saying that all building and […]
What in a normal setting is an everyday land dispute can quickly turn into a full-blown sectarian flashpoint with adverse effects on the wider community, when one side of the feud happens to belong to the wrong religion. This is what Hamdi Makanoti, his family, and local Coptic Christians are […]
Egypt’s top Islamic authority visited a well-known bookshop in central Cairo last week, telling it to halt sales of the book “Blasphemy in Egypt” by two prominent Egyptian authors. “Officials representing Al-Azhar and the Egyptian Ministry of Islamic Endowments visited Madbouli Bookshop and asked them to stop selling the book […]
The father of an Egyptian Christian soldier found dead in his military unit 12 weeks ago is adamant, and angry. The results of an autopsy and military investigation into his son’s death are simply “not true,” he says. “I am very angry at the Suez military prosecution for refusing to […]
A Cairo-based photojournalist has responded to an “epidemic” of sexual harassment in Egypt by “making portraits of women next to the clothes they would wear on the streets if only they felt safe enough,” reports Time. “To be a woman in Egypt is to live with the crushing inevitability of […]
Egyptian Christian Medhat Ishaq was arrested in a satellite town of Cairo on Sunday (9 August) for giving away Bibles to passersby. According to the weekly Watani newspaper, the 35-year-old Copt was standing in front of the Arabia shopping mall in 6 October town when passersby stopped him and summoned […]