Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cairo, clashes between Muslims and Christians At least 12 dead and 230 injured

The tension rises again in Egypt. Salafist groups and Copts clashed last night in Cairo waging a real battle around a Christian church, according to medical sources, left 12 dead on the ground and over 230 wounded. The army announced that 190 people were arrested and will be tried in military courts.

New clashes between extremist Muslims and Coptic Christians erupted again today, causing five others wounded. The authors of the violent scontriscoppiati overnight in Cairo are a "criminal minority" immediately and will be judged and condemned "with the more severe penalties," said Egyptian Minister of Justice, Abdel Aziz El Ghenzy.

The accident occurred last night in the suburb of Embaba around the church of Saint Mina. It is not yet clear what has triggered the riots. Interior Minister Mansour el Essawi spoke on television of a marriage dispute between a Muslim and a Christian. Several witnesses have reported that hundreds instead of Salafists have surrounded the church where apparently had been locked up a women who converted to Islam.

E 'was insisted that the woman was brought out but the guards responsible for overseeing the place of worship have refused. There followed an altercation that turned more and more, according to witnesses, degenerated into a shooting stopped only by police and soldiers with tear gas. The clashes have been condemned by Muslim religious authorities.

"They have nothing to do with religion, but are acts of" banditry, "said a source at the University of Al Azhar, the highest authority in the Sunni world, which is also joined condemnation of the Mufti of Egypt Ali Jomaa. The incidents of last night are a concern more for the Egyptian authorities that, after popular protests in February that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, are trying to bring the country back to normal.

Relations between Muslims and Christians in Egypt have experienced moments of serious tension. The Coptic minority, which accounts for 10 percent of 80 million inhabitants of the North African country, complain of being discriminated against for religious reasons. One reason for increased friction between the two communities, in addition, it is the conversion of Christians to Islam.

The anti-Mubarak protests last February seemed to have ironed out their differences when Muslims and Christians found themselves side by side on Tahrir Square in Cairo to ask Saddam to leave power. The anti-regime protests had even made him forget the massacre of New Year's Eve in Alexandria, where a car bomb exploded between 31 December and 1 January in front of a church at the end of the midnight mass, causing 23 deaths.

The attack was attributed to Islamic extremists.

No comments:

Post a Comment