By Tony Gamal Gabriel
CAIRO: The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) condemned the attack on a church in Marinab late last month, blaming the authorities for not dealing with the sectarian tension in the village in a report issued last week.
Entitled “The Marinab events are a stark example of the state’s penchant towards extremism,” the report contains testimonies from the village’s Muslims and Copts on clashes that resulted in the the partial burning of a church in the southern city of Marinab, a few kilometers from Edfu on Sept. 30.
While Aswan’s governor Moustafa Al-Sayed maintains that the attacked building is a service center, EIPR said it obtained documents and licenses that prove it was a church.
EIPR called on Al-Sayed to rebuild the church and compensate the Coptic residents whose houses were destroyed in the clashes.
According to the report, Marinab’s Muslim community had objected to having a bell, a cross and a minaret on the church as well as demanded the demolition of the six domes on top of the building.
Although the village’s archbishops agreed to taking down the domes in a reconciliation session, the issue escalated when hundreds of Muslims were incited by their mosque’s Imam to set fire to the church and attempt to demolish it themselves, the report said, adding that three neighboring houses were burnt in the incidents as well.
Hossam Bahgat, head of EIPR, criticized the reactions of some members of Marinab’s Muslim community to the renovation of the church, drawing parallels with the Swiss ban on mosques’ minarets.
Bahgat wondered how people criticize this ban while the construction of churches in Egypt are limited by “humiliating and shameful conditions,” such as not allowing bells, crosses or domes, “because those elements allegedly hurt Muslims’ feelings,” he commented.
In the report, EIPR denounced the way authorities dealt with Marinab’s events, accusing them of “not finding an appropriate solution to the problem before it escalated,” calling the multiple reconciliation sessions a “failure.”
The report also blamed security forces for their “inability to protect the victims of the attacks.”
EIPR stressed that “the construction of a houses of worship should not be on condition of the residents’ approval,” adding that this is a constitutional right, which must “be granted to all, without discrimination.”
According to EIPR, the way the state deals with the sectarian tension explains why such events keep reoccurring.
“We have seen those same exact events take place on a regular basis, and those crimes will keep on happening as long as we don’t change the way the authorities deal with this issue,” Ishaq Ibrahim, an EIPR researcher, said in the report.
“Allowing criminals to get away with the destruction Soul’s church in Helwan in March allowed the burning of a church in Imbaba and today in Aswan. The Supreme Council of the Armed Force must take responsibility for those attacks which are set to continue as long as the military ruler does not change its politics,” Bahgat warned.
