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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Egyptian authorities looking to crack down on attacks on Christian churches
and businesses raided the homes of Muslim Brotherhood members Sunday,
detaining hundreds of mid-level officials as the group cancelled plans for
marches in Cairo, claiming that snipers were positioned on rooftops along
the routes.
Since security forces cleared two sit-in camps filled with supporters of
former President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday, Islamists have attacked dozens
of Coptic churches, along with homes and businesses owned by the Christian
minority. The campaign of intimidation appears to be a warning to Christians
outside Cairo to stand down from political activism.
At least 300 Muslim Brotherhood officials and field operatives were detained
in several cities during Sunday's raids, security officials and group
statements said.
In Assiut, 200 miles south of Cairo, 163 of the group's officials and
operatives were rounded up in different towns in the province, security
officials said. They said those arrested face charges of instigating
violence and orchestrating attacks on police stations and churches.
In the city of Suez, nine people were arrested after being caught on film
attacking army vehicles, burning churches and assaulting Christian-owned
stores, officials said. And in Luxor, more than 20 Brotherhood senior
officials were detained, officials said.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which has launched protests since Morsi's July 3
ouster by the military, scuttled plans for two Sunday demonstrations in
Cairo.
Prior to the cancellations, authorities stationed armored vehicles and
troops in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court courthouse in Cairo,
which may have turned into another focal point of street violence.
Sources in the Muslim Brotherhood told the BBC that the protests were
canceled because of the "presence of snipers on buildings along the routes
of the marches," although the claim could not be verified.
Egypt's military leader, Gen. Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, said Sunday during a
gathering of top military commanders and police chiefs that the army will
not stand by silently in the face of violence. It was El-Sissi's first
appearance since the deadly crackdown on Wednesday.
He also said that the Army has no intention to seize power, while calling on
Islamists to join the political process.
"We will not stand by silently watching the destruction of the country and
the people or the torching the nation and terrorizing the citizens," he said
in comments quoted on state television and posted on an official military
Facebook page. "We have given many chances ... to end the crisis peacefully
and call for the followers of the former regime to participate in rebuilding
the democratic track and integrate in the political process and the future
map instead of confrontations and destroying the Egyptian state."
Christians have long suffered from discrimination and violence in Egypt,
where they make up 10 percent of the population of 90 million. Attacks
increased after the Islamists rose to power in the wake of the 2011 Arab
Spring uprising that drove Hosni Mubarak from power, emboldening extremists.
But Christians have come further under fire since Morsi was ousted on July
3, sparking a wave of Islamist anger led by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Many Morsi supporters say Christians played a disproportionately large role
in mass rallies that occurred before Morsi was ousted by the military, as
millions took to the streets to demand Morsi's resignation.
Despite the violence, Egypt's Coptic Christian church renewed its commitment
to the new political order Friday, saying in a statement that it stood by
the army and the police in their fight against "the armed violent groups and
black terrorism."
Some Christians have also drawn closer to moderate Muslims in a few
provinces, in a rare show of solidarity.
Hundreds from both communities thronged two monasteries in the province of
Bani Suef south of Cairo to thwart what they had expected to be imminent
attacks on Saturday, local activist Girgis Waheeb said. Activists reported
similar examples elsewhere in regions south of Cairo, but not enough to
provide effective protection of churches and monasteries.
Waheeb, other activists and victims of the latest wave of attacks blame the
police as much as hard-line Islamists for what happened. The attacks, they
said, coincided with assaults on police stations in provinces like Bani Suef
and Minya, leaving most police pinned down to defend their stations or
reinforcing others rather than rushing to the rescue of Christians under
attack.
Another Christian activist, Ezzat Ibrahim of Minya, a province also south of
Cairo where Christians make up around 35 percent of the population, said
police have melted away from seven of the region's nine districts, leaving
the extremists to act with near impunity.
Two Christians have been killed since Wednesday, including a taxi driver who
strayed into a protest by Morsi supporters in Alexandria and another man
who was shot to death by Islamists in the southern province of Sohag,
according to security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because
they weren't authorized to release the information.
More than 800 people have been killed nationwide since Wednesday's
dismantling of two encampments of Morsi supporters in Cairo. At least 79
were killed on Saturday, Egypt's state news agency said, according to
Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has begun deliberations on whether to ban
the Brotherhood, a long-outlawed organization that swept to power in the
country's first democratic elections a year ago.
Such a ban -- which authorities say would be implemented over the group's
use of violence -- would be a repeat of the decades-long power struggle
between the state and the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood faces increasing public criticism over the ongoing violence
in Egypt. Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the powerful head of Al-Azhar mosque, Sunni
Islam's main seat of learning, issued an audio statement asking Brotherhood
members to stop the violence.
"The scenes of violence will not grant you any rights and the bloodshed nor
chaos spreading across the country will give you no legitimacy," el-Tayeb
said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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