Dear Friends,

I am writing to ask for your prayers today as hopefully hundreds and thousands of Egyptians will be protesting the autocratic dictatorial powers President Morsi has taken upon himself and the unrepresentative constitution he wants to impose on Egyptians.

Egypt has been a Muslim nation for a long time but what is different today is that the Islamist Government is trying to impose a particularly conservative view of Islam on the population in general.  While this will not, in the first instance, affect the daily lives of Christians, this narrow interpretation of Islam will seriously affect the many millions of Muslims in Egypt who are more moderate and believe that Islam can co-exist within the 21th century world.

The hope of the protestors today is to come out in significant numbers so that the Government and the world will take notice of them.  Last Tuesday hundreds of thousands and maybe up to a million people protested in Tahrir Square where the January 25th Revolution started two years ago.  Immediately after that on Saturday a counter demonstration took place at Cairo University with hundreds of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters who support the President and the new constitution.  As a result of these demonstrations, Egypt is divided between Islamists and the rest of the population.

With the United States strongly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood Government, most moderate Muslims and Christians in Egypt feel that our protest will go unheeded since our President does not feel threatened by outside pressure and does not seem concerned about meeting any of the demands of the opposition. 

Please pray:

The future of genuine democratic liberties in Egypt - which was the hope of the revolution - is in serious jeopardy and many Egyptians are both discouraged and angry.

On a day to day basis most people in Egypt continue their life as usual but are much more worried, tense and concerned that with the suspension of the courts, the crash of the stock market and the instability in the country, the future looks bleak. 

Isn’t it wonderful to know that our citizenship is in heaven and that what we have invested there cannot be affected by anything here.

Thanks for your prayers, encouragement and support for us during these challenging days.

With warm greetings,

Ramez Atallah
The Bible Society of Egypt