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.
The mass beheadings of 21 Coptic Egyptians in Libya may have the surprising effect of bringing Egypt’s Muslims and Christians closer together. So says Nina Shea, director of the . “The killers may have aimed to exploit sectarian hostilities – as they have in Iraq and Syria – and splinter Egyptian society. […]
Taken during the funeral of Shahid Nasemis SaroufimWorld Watch Monitor It’s happening several times a week now, particularly in the towns and villages of Upper Egypt. Just a brief news report, citing an isolated killing here and there of a Coptic Christian by “unknown gunmen.” Another statistic, usually just […]
Rupert Shortt, author of Christianophobia: A Faith Under Attack, has written an opinion piece in The Telegraph in which he argues that the murder of 21 Coptic Christians by Islamic State is not an isolated case but instead “the latest of countless outrages perpetrated against Christians in or near the […]
Egypt began seven days of national mourning after Islamist militants released a graphic video on 15 February, depicting the mass beheading of 20 Coptic Christians and a Ghanaian Christian in Libya. Originally it was believed that all 21 men were Coptic Egyptians, but on 25 February MidEast Christian News confirmed […]
Agenzia Fides reports a plot of land, the size of 2.5 acres (30 hectares), has been made available to the Coptic Patriarchate to build offices connected to the Cathedral of San Marco in Cairo. Three additional smaller plots will be allocated in other areas across the capital for the construction of […]
After weeks of judicial runaround, Egyptian lawyer Karam Ghobrial has managed to find and visit his client, Egypt’s most publicly-known Christian convert Mohammed Hegazy, in Cairo’s Tora Prison. The whereabouts of Hegazy, the first Egyptian Muslim to, in 2007, fight a legal case to change his religious identity to Christian, […]
nEgyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, center, attends a Christmas Eve mass led by Egyptian Coptic Pope Tawadros II, left, at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District of Cairo on Jan. 6 Ahmed Gamel / AFP / Getty Images Hours before Egypt’s Coptic Christian communities gathered for their […]
Mohammed Hegazy, the first Egyptian citizen to attempt to change his legal religious identity from Muslim to Christian, was sentenced to a year in prison on one charge and acquitted of two other charges at a Dec. 28 hearing in the Misdemeanor Court in Minya, Upper Egypt. According to Mideast […]
Special security plans have been developed to protect Coptic Christians during their upcoming Christmas celebration Jan. 7. According to Agenzia Fides, Egyptian Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim assembled a meeting Dec. 28 to discuss security, and “the plan provides for the distribution of patrols in the vicinity of places of worship and […]
According to Fides News Agency, recognized Muslim academics from the Arab world’s most prestigious Islamic university have denounced recent threats made by extremist Islamists against Egyptian Christians. In the lead up to Christmas, celebrated on Jan. 7 by Coptic Christians, death threats and organized attacks against Christian communities have been […]