CAIRO: The public prosecution office has ordered the detention of 156 people who participated in a protest Wednesday pending investigation into various criminal charges, including the attempted murder of assistant head of Giza security.
The public prosecution office has denied lawyers the right to represent the arrested demonstrators during prosecution office questioning.
The demonstration broke out on Wednesday morning in the Talibiya area of Giza after government officials demanded the suspension of construction on the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael church because its owners only had a license to use the building for providing services and not as a place of worship.
A further protest took place outside the Giza governor’s office in Omraneya, where, eyewitnesses told the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), 19-year-old Makarios Gad Shaker was shot in the chest by security forces using live ammunition. Shaker was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.
State-run newspapers claim that Shaker was shot in the thigh.
At the time of going to press there were unconfirmed reports that a second demonstrator had also died in hospital.
The 156 defendants are also charged with assault of central security force troops, attempted murder of an Omraneya police station officer, criminal damage of a central security forces vehicle, theft of a central security forces vehicle battery, illegal assembly, causing a disturbance, use of illegal weapons, failure to carry personal identity documents, throwing stones at police cars and pedestrians, deliberate destruction of buildings for a terrorist objective, blocking traffic, possession and use of explosives and disturbing public security.
When some 30 lawyers went to the South Giza public prosecution office on Wednesday night they were surrounded by central security force troops and prevented from representing defendants arrested during the demonstrations.
Head of the South Giza public prosecution office is reported to have told a delegation of five lawyers who were able to enter the building that he had received instructions not to allow them to attend interrogations.
Lawyers presented a complaint about the incident to the attorney general on Thursday.
Images and videos of the demonstrations show protestors throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails and security forces responding with teargas. One photograph shows central security forces soldiers positioned on a bridge throwing rocks at demonstrators below them.
Tens of people are reported to have been injured during the clashes and security sources say that 93 people have been detained. Church sources put this figure at 200.
“[Wednesday’s] events are a serious escalation in the state’s treatment of its Christian citizens. We’re not talking about social violence occasioned by the construction of a church, but rather security forces opening fire on protestors demanding their constitutional right to worship without arbitrary interference or discrimination,” said Hossam Bahgat, EIPR’s executive director.
“Even assuming Copts in the area wanted to convert a services building into a church for worship, that does not justify this degree of police violence. Demonstrators should not be shot at for violating building codes.”
Speaking during a protest to condemn the force used against the demonstrators on Thursday outside the public prosecutor’s office in Cairo, Bahgat told Daily News Egypt that the “root cause” of this and similar incidents is “is long-standing legal discrimination in the exercise to the right of religious freedom.”
Rights groups have long criticized the duality of regulations governing the construction of places of worship in Egypt.
Christians are required to obtain the permission of the president of the republic to construct a church, a process which can take years. Tight regulations pertain even to the repair of existing churches.
Far less stringent conditions are applied to the construction of mosques.
In a statement issued Thursday rights group Misriyoun (Egyptians) Against Religious Discrimination (MARED) is critical of the government’s refusal to issue a unified law concerning the construction of places of worship and points out the church at the center of the demonstrations is in a shantytown where many buildings are in breach of construction regulations.
MARED says that “the government insists the law should only be enforced against Copts … a continuation of the state policy of placing restrictions on their right to freely practice religious rites.”
“These defendants are facing felony charges. By law the prosecutor had no right to interrogate them in the absence of lawyers,” Bahgat told Daily News Egypt.
“My only explanation for this is that there were fears that the nature of the charges would become public and they want to keep it a secret for as long as possible,” Bahgat continued.
Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher with EIPR’s Freedom of Religion and Belief Program, said in a statement that Wednesday’s “painful events would not have occurred if the state did not continue to violate its obligation to guarantee freedom of religion and belief for all citizens without discrimination.”
Activist Mona Mina echoed this, saying that the government must enact a unified places of worship law but that instead it “has responded to Christians’ problems with teargas and bullets. In summary its role has been to add fuel to the fire.” -Additional reporting by Essam Fadl
Protestors chant in solidarity of the detained Copts and Alexandria journalist Youssef Shaaban in Cairo on Thursday. (Daily News Egypt Photo/Sarah Carr)
Protestors chant in solidarity of the detained Copts and Alexandria journalist Youssef Shaaban in Cairo on Thursday. (Daily News Egypt Photo/Sarah Carr)
