By AFP
VATICAN CITY: The Congregation for Eastern Churches at the Vatican on Monday slammed as “senseless violence” the clashes in central Cairo that left 25 people, mainly Coptic Christians, dead.
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri told Vatican Radio he hoped the violence “would not lead as well to a climate of precariousness and difficulty” for the Coptic community.
Saying he was aware of the “numerous obstacles and difficulties” Egypt faces, Sandri insisted that the state “has a responsibility to guarantee the security of people, goods and institutions.”
Sandri said he hoped the transition government “is able to confront all possible attacks against Christians, against Muslims, against anyone.”
Twenty-five people were killed and more than 300 were injured on Sunday when clashes broke out with security forces during a Coptic demonstration against an attack earlier this month on a church in the southern city of Aswan.
Pope Benedict XVI has not commented on Sunday’s violence so far.
His calls for Egypt to protect its minorities following a deadly attack on a Church in Alexandria in 2010 riled Cairo, which protested by temporarily recalling its ambassador to the Vatican for “consultations.”
Egypt’s Copts are the largest Christian minority community in the Middle East, and one of the oldest.
The Copts are generally estimated at between six and 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 80 million. The Coptic Church itself claims it has 10 million followers, 90 percent of which are Orthodox.
Weakly represented in government, Copts complain that they are sidelined in the community and suffer from very restrictive legislation on building churches, whereas the regime for building mosques is very liberal.
