CAIRO: Hundreds of Muslims threw stones at Christian houses and shops in the village of Al-Nazla in Fayoum Friday after a woman who had converted to Islam went missing.
The woman had reportedly run off two years ago with the Muslim man who became her husband, in defiance of her Christian family.
Five people were slightly injured as police used tear gas to disperse the protestors and 20 arrests were made. Muslims had protested when word spread that the woman was abducted by her Christian family.
Around 50 homes and businesses were attacked, a security official told AFP.
The official added that the woman returned to Al-Nazla with her 10-month-old baby after spending three days in Cairo with relatives.
This latest incident comes in the wake of attacks on the Abo Fana Monastery in the village of Mallawi in Minya, where monks and novices continued a sit-in in protest of the decision by the border arbitration committee which ruled that a wall around the monastery was to be removed.
It was this wall that led to the attack on the monastery on May 31 as residents complained that the wall was built on their agricultural land.
Seventy five monks and priests and another 60 Copts are holding the sit-in in shifts around the clock as security forces upped their presence around the monastery.
The attacks on the monastery resulted in the death of one Muslim, Khalil Mohamed Ibrahim, and the injury of seven Coptic Christians, five of which were monks.
The attack has led to great unrest throughout the governorate and tensions have been further inflamed after the death of 23-year-old Copt Milad Farag who was killed in a fight with Khamis Eid, a Muslim, in what was described as a “personal quarrel.
A Coptic neighbor from the village of Dafsh where the murder happened, Nabil Hanin, said it wasn’t a sectarian quarrel. “Both are neighbors who had a fight, like all youth do. Sadly, it escalated this way, she said.
With the governor of Minya in attendance at Farag’s funeral, Copts in attendance demonstrated expressing their anger at the lack of protection they are receiving.
This echoes the demonstrations that took place in the wake of the attack on Abo Fana, as hundreds of Copts protested in front of the Orthodox Parish in Mallawi and clashed with security forces there.
A recent bout of sectarian attacks has increased the tension between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.
Minya has also been the site of sectarian tensions in recently when two violent incidents took place in Minya University. Reports stated that Coptic students had scrawled an X over Quranic verses and had drawn caricatures of Prophet Mohamed. The Coptic Ecclesiastical Council recently sent a letter to President Hosni Mubarak urging him to protect Coptic Christians in Egypt.
Citing the Abo Fana attack, the letter urged Mubarak to end attacks on monks and “insults to the cross.
