In this editorial in Al-Ahram Weekly, Jamāl Nkramah claims that incidents such as the ‘Umranniyah riots are “few and far between,” arguing that Egypt is “a much safer society than most.”

The problem, rather, is a “culture of hatred” that takes advantage of underprivileged and discouraged youth, says veteran columnist Salāmah Ahmad Salāmah, who also blames the violence on a failure to implement a unified law for houses of worship, despite a constitutional mandate to place construction of mosques and churches on equal footing.

However, Muhammad Fāyiq of the Arab Organization for Human Rights says that the ‘Umrāniyyah riots weren’t only about the rights of Christians. “The uproar over ‘Umrāniyyah was essentially about strengthening the citizenship rights of all Egyptians,” says Fāyiq, “Both [Muslim and Christian] communities are yearning for the improvement of the country’s human rights record.”

Nkramah referred to media coverage of the events as “sensationalism and cheap melodrama.”