Egypt: Man accused of IS allegiance sentenced to death for killing Coptic doctor

The Supreme Court in Egypt's capital Cairo. (Photo: Rachid H via Flickr; CC 2.0)
An Egyptian court sentenced a man to death last Saturday, 17 November, for the killing of an 80-year-old Christian doctor in Cairo in September last year, reports The Associated Press. The 40-year-old assailant, whose identity remains undisclosed, entered the doctor’s office in the Egyptian capital pretending to be a patient, . . . Read More

Islamists suspected of bus attack killed, as Copts mourn

Islamists suspected of bus attack killed, as Copts mourn
Egypt’s interior ministry claimed yesterday to have killed 19 Islamist militants suspected of carrying out the bus attack on Friday that killed seven Copts and injured over a dozen others. The militants were killed in a shootout in the desert area west of Minya governorate, where the attack took place, . . . Read More

Egypt’s Copts nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

In October last year the Coptic church in Sohag, Minya governorate, had its electricity and water supply cut by police, who said they had received complaints from Muslim villagers (Watani)
Egypt’s Coptic Christians have been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for choosing peaceful coexistence over retaliation in the face of persecution, reports the US-based news site PR Newswire. It is believed to be the first time in the 116-year history of the prize that an ethnic religious group . . . Read More

Egypt’s elections and the man dividing the country’s Copts

Egypt’s elections and the man dividing the country’s Copts
Walking around Cairo you would be forgiven for thinking that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was the only candidate running in the elections later this month. His is the only grandiose face bearing down on passers-by, while billboards of his rival, Mousa Mostafa Mousa, are nowhere to be seen. Egypt’s 26-28 March presidential elections have . . . Read More

Why are attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christians getting worse?

Why are attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christians getting worse?
Attacks on Christians in Egypt have intensified in brutality because of an influx of arms and foreign jihadis, lax border security and increased local hostility to non-Muslims, according to a leading UK academic. Dr Mariz Tadros of Sussex University’s Institute of Development Studies said that the suicide attack on a . . . Read More

Al-Azhar says Islam ‘totally incompatible’ with violence, as IS shifts focus to Upper Egypt

Al-Azhar says Islam ‘totally incompatible’ with violence, as IS shifts focus to Upper Egypt
Scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the pre-eminent seat of Sunni Islamic learning, have submitted a bill to the Egyptian government, which “aims to reaffirm the total incompatibility between the violence justified by religious arguments and Islamic law”. As World Watch Monitor reported on 21 June, Al-Azhar has distanced itself from . . . Read More

Egypt’s Christians ‘at breaking point’ says bishop

Christians feel “under siege” in Egypt after a series of attacks this summer, and continued difficulties faced by the community in building churches, the New York Times reports. In Minya (Upper Egypt) alone, Copts continue to “suffer violence and humiliation”. Houses have been burned, Copts attacked on the streets and . . . Read More