CAIRO: Egypt s attorney general ordered 32 suspects remanded in custody Wednesday in connection with sectarian clashes south of Cairo that left eight people wounded. They included both Christians and Muslims arrested after Monday s violence in the village of Al-Ayat, some 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of Cairo, judicial sources said. The violence came amid Muslim anger over the construction of a community center by their Christian fellow villagers, police told AFP. There have been a series of outbursts of sectarian violence in Egypt in recent months, in the Nile Delta and the south as well as around Cairo. Restrictions on church building have been one of the main grievances of the Christian community, which claims to make up some 10 percent of Egypt s 73 million population. In a move seen as an attempt to allay Coptic fears after Islamist gains in parliamentary elections late last year, President Hosni Mubarak issued a decree in December easing restrictions on the construction of churches. AFP
Thirty-two held after sectarian clashes
