Foreign Policy Confronts the Problem Squarely
Foreign Policy has published an article, “The roots of Egypt’s Muslim-Christian tensions,”
that addresses the escalation of violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt.
It is worth a read.
Writer Michael Wahid Hanna summarizes the rise of Islamism in the Egypt and its impact on the safety and well-being of Coptic Christians in Egypt. One important theme in Hanna’s piece is that superficial appeals to Egyptian unity are an insufficient response to the violence against Coptic Christians by Islamists. Egypt must start a conversation about the rights of Coptic Christians in particular and the rights of all Egyptians to address the problems it faces.
Hanna mentions many of the important data points that activists must confront if they are truly interested in promoting human rights in Egypt — the inability of Christians to build churches, the apparent extraction of the jizyah tax in some parts of Egypt and the tendency of the Egyptian government to downplay or deny the sectarian component of acts of violence against Christians. Hanna also points out the government’s tendency to blame outside forces for attacks against Coptic Christians.
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