Egypt: The Solidarity That Deposed Mubarak Is Gone As Muslims Attack Christians

From an email I received from DG:

Religious conflict in Egypt

Via memeorandum: 9 Christians Killed, 150 Injured in Attack By 15,000 Muslims and Egyptian Army

It seems like that solidarity in Egypt is over:

The incident started when 500 Coptic demonstrators from Manshier Nasr, also known as "Garbage City," which is near the Monastery, were on their way to join the Coptic protest near the Egyptian TV Building, to show their solidarity with the Copts of the village of Soul in Atfif, who were forcibly displaced from their village and their church torched (AINA 3-5-2011). Nearly 15,000 Muslims from the nearby area of Sayeda Aisha and Mokattam, who were armed with weapons including automatic guns, confronted the Copts.


The clashes first started with hurling of stones at the Coptic demonstrators, then Molotov Cocktails. According to eyewitnesses the Copts called the army which arrived at the scene at 15:00 with 10 tanks . At first the military stood by watching, then shot in the air, then at the Coptic side with live ammunition.

"We were at one side and the Muslim on the other, we have hundreds of injured at the Coptic side," said an eyewitness. "The Muslims were also shooting from behind the army tanks."

CAMERA featured the above report and corrected a couple of details. CAMERA also noted that the MSM is starting to report on this violence.

One aspect of the New York Times report that's a little disconcerting is:

On Tuesday night into early Wednesday, 13 people were killed and 140 wounded in fighting between Muslims and Christians in the suburbs of Cairo, the Health Ministry said. The clashes, which broke out during a protest by several hundred Christians over the burning last week of a church in the village of Soul, were a significant departure from the sense of solidarity that had prevailed among people of different backgrounds throughout the weeks of protests that led to Mr. Mubarak’s resignation.

Yes it acknowledges the protest and the burning of the church, but it begins with "fighting between Muslims and Christians" when it would have been more accurate to report "Muslims attacked Christians protesting."

Also the article had originally been strictly about the sectarian violence, which is now the secondary focus of the article. The headline and primary focus is now about Mohammed el-Baradei.

The Times also reports on an Egyptian novelist:

“And be careful, there will be efforts, the same old trick, to display large support for the Brotherhood in order to send a renewed message to the West that it is either dictatorship or the Brotherhood,” he said, referring to Western fears that a rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood could turn Egypt into an Islamic fundamentalist state.

Mr. Aswany has always been dismissive of the idea that democracy would usher Islamists into power.

The strongest party in Egypt “is the party of Facebook,” he told another literary and political salon on Jan. 27.

“That is a real party, which has allowed a group of youth to get 400,000 people on the streets.
No other party, including the Muslim Brotherhood, has succeeded in doing that.”

With the sectarian violence becoming more serious, Aswany's faith in "the party of Facebook" seems a bit misplaced.

Technorati Tag: Egypt and Copts.