The One-Year Anniversary of the Two Saints' Church Bombing

Submitted by A.Rizkallah (not verified) on Thu, 2012-03-01 09:20
Language: 
English
Sent On: 
Sat, 2011-12-31
Year: 
2011
Newsletter Number: 
25

 

The One-Year Anniversary of the Two Saints' Church Bombing

 

AWR's Jayson Casper examines how Coptic Christians in Alexandria are recovering from a deadly terrorist attack on their house of worship 

 

January 1, 2012

 

CAIRO (AWR) — Exactly one year ago today, the Two Saints' Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria was rocked by a bombing during New Year's Eve mass, killing 21 people and wounding at least 170 others, barely 20 minutes into the new year.

 

Shortly after the Alexandria attack, Muslims and Christians came together during the 18-day uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak, in an encouraging sign of interfaith unity.

 

Since then, however, Christians have unfortunately been the target of apparent sectarian violence in Atfih, Imbabah, Maspero and elsewhere.

 

AWR's Jayson Casper, who recently visited the Two Saints' Church, says that Muslims and Christians must rediscover unity if the gains from the revolution are to  be preserved.

 

Read more....

 

 

 

 

 

Blessed Are the Persecuted: Religious Resistance Among Coptic Christians in Egypt

 

 

Researcher Sanne Lund examines how Egypt's Coptic Christian minority responds to what it perceives as discrimination in Egyptian society.

 

Using the Two Saints' Church attack as a starting point, Lund argues that fear of violent retribution, internal fragmentation, and a belief that they are operating within an inherently intolerant social system has kept Copts from organizing any conventional social and political resistance movements.

 

 

 

What the Crackdown on NGOs and Recent Salafi Political Successes Mean for SCAF

 

 

Few expected this Thursday's crackdown on several Egyptian NGOs, which was carried out by security forces because of allegedly unauthorized foreign funding. Neither did anyone anticipate that the ultra-conservative Salafi political groups would make such substantial gains in recent elections.

 

Lamis Yahya asks if these two developments are somehow related to a strategic power play in the upper echelons of Egyptian authority.

 
 
 

The Arab West Report would like to wish the Coptic Christian community a very merry Christmas, and best wishes to all in 2012!

 

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The Arab West Report is a weekly digest of Egyptian newspaper translations and analysis, focusing primarily on Arab-West and Muslim-Christian relations.

 

To reach a specialist or for general media inquiries, send us an email.

 

To follow our summary translations of Arabic media in Egypt, visit our website:

www.newspiritz.eu/awr1

 

Other websites in the Arab-West group:

www.arabwestfoundation.com , www.cawu.org , www.cidtegypt.com , www. enawu.com

 

Creative Commons photo taken from Flickr stream of Ahmed Abd El-fatah.