Tag: Copts

Egypt’s human rights move dismissed as ploy to win back US aid

January 10, 2018 Egypt Copts, Egypt, Human rights, Kidnapping, Minya, Muslim Brotherhood, Sohag

Efforts by the Egyptian government to improve its record on human rights are aimed primarily at persuading the US government to reinstate its generous aid package, Coptic activists have said. Last month Egypt announced it would set up 60 human-rights departments across the country to record complaints from citizens of . . . Read More

Egypt: 7 years after church closed, Copts start to rebuild

January 9, 2018 Egypt Churches, Copts, Egypt, Kom El-Loufy

Seven years after their previous church was closed by local authorities because of “security reasons”, the Coptic community in the Egyptian village of Kom El-Loufy, 250km south of Cairo, is celebrating as a new church is built. Last month, with the agreement of local Muslims, the Copts started digging the foundations on a piece of land 700 . . . Read More

Egypt: brothers shot dead ahead of Coptic Christmas

January 2, 2018 Egypt Cairo, Christmas, Copts, Giza, Helwan, Islamic State

Two brothers helping a Coptic Christian shop owner were shot dead on New Year’s Day in Giza, Greater Cairo. The men, who owned a car-parts shop next door, had been helping to stock the shop with alcohol, reported Al Arabiya. The Christian brothers were killed when a gunman pulled up . . . Read More

Machine-gun ambush kills Christians leaving church near Cairo

December 29, 2017 Egypt Bishop Angaelos, Cairo, Copts, Egypt, Helwan, Islamic State

Preparations for memorial services following the Dec. 29 attack on Mar Mina church in Helwan, south of Cairo. (Photo via Twitter / @auscma)

This version contains updated information about the details of the attack, and comments from witnesses contacted by World Watch Monitor. Several Christians were gunned down as they left church services on the morning of 29 December near the Egyptian capital, Cairo, the Coptic Church and various government authorities reported. At . . . Read More

Egypt teenager’s murder ‘aimed to intimidate Copts ahead of Christmas’, says his pastor

December 22, 2017 Egypt Asyut, Copts, Egypt, Upper Egypt

Murdered 14 yr old Ishak Nashaat Birwan, who drove a 'tuk-tuk' taxi

The body of 14-year-old Ishak Nashaat Birwan was found on Wednesday (20 December), 11 days after he disappeared, in a canal near where he lived in Izziyah, a large Christian village near Manfalout in Asyut. Samir Fekry, Ishak’s cousin, told World Watch Monitor that the body was taken to the . . . Read More

Egypt: After 7 years of delays, new church for Copts, who agree to drop arson claims

December 21, 2017 Egypt Anba Macarius, Copts, Egypt, Kom El-Loufy, Minya

After 12 years of fierce opposition Coptic Christians in Kom El-Loufy, Minya, will soon again have a church. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Copts in the Egyptian town of Kom El-Loufy, Upper Egypt, 250 km south of Cairo, started the construction of a church today, seven years after their previous building was closed by local authorities because of “security reasons”. They have withdrawn their charges against 23 Muslims who burned down some of their . . . Read More

Egypt: ‘Let them live to tell the story’- boys who saw dad die on the monastery road

December 21, 2017 Egypt Children, Copts, Egypt, Minya

Marco and Mina with their mother and elder sister hold portrait of their father who died in 25 May attack. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Marco and Mina live in a small village in the Minya region of rural southern Egypt. Both look young for their age, 14 and 10 respectively. On 25 May 2017, they joined their father Ayad to go to the monastery of St. Samuel. Ayad worked there and was going to . . . Read More

‘80% of religious discrimination targets Christians’

December 7, 2017 Global News -- No Particular Country Bishop Angaelos, Copts, Human rights, Middle East, Patriarch Bartholomew I, Patriarch Kirill, Pope Francis, Religious freedom

Father Poulos looking up to the ceiling in this house that still has a lot of destruction and needs thorough repairs

Christians are the victims in 80 per cent of acts of religious discrimination, despite only accounting for 30 per cent of the global population, a conference in Washington heard on Tuesday (5 December). The statistics, from the International Society for Human Rights, were presented at the 3rd International Conference on Religious . . . Read More

Egypt: Coptic church reopens 8 months after Palm Sunday bombing

December 4, 2017 Egypt Alexandria, Catholics, Churches, Copts, Egypt, Gharbia, Palm Sunday, Protestants, Tanta

A Coptic cathedral has been restored and reopened eight months after a suicide bombing there on Palm Sunday killed 28 and injured 74 others. St. George’s Cathedral in Tanta, the capital of the Gharbia governorate north of Cairo, has been renamed the Cathedral of St. George and the Martyrs, and . . . Read More

Egypt: 21 churches receive long-delayed government approval to build

November 29, 2017 Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Al-Azhar, Anba Macarius, Cairo, Churches, Copts, Egypt, El-Arish, Islamic State, Minya, Pentecostals, Port Said, Protestants, Religious freedom, Samalut, Sinai, Sohag, Sunni, Upper Egypt, USA

Twenty-one churches in Egypt’s southern rural Minya governorate can restore, expand and rebuild their churches after receiving approval from the Minya Governor. Governor Essam al-Bedeiwi approved the 21 applications over the last six months. Some of the churches had been waiting for more than 20 years for a permit to come . . . Read More

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