Asyut Governorate witnessed a new sectarian incident when a Christian man was accused of sexually assaulting a Muslim boy. The situation flared up in the late evening hours of Sunday Mar. 3 in the area Hay al-Arbi'īn. Hundreds of Salafīs and members of al-Jamā’ah al-Islāmīyah gathered in front of the building of the Christian man’s family. They lit up car tires and then set fire to the flat and the shop of the accused. The security agency and the military police were able to control the incident and arrested the accused and his brother.
Statements say that the boy informed his mother of the harassment and attack by the accused. The boy’s father then took the boy to the hospital for a medical examination where it was confirmed that the boy had been sexually assaulted.
A number of people in the area confirmed that the accused had recently moved from a region in the West of the country because of sectarian disputes with his former neighbours. He had received numerous warnings because of his poor treatment of girls and his attempt to harass them.
Karam ‘Antar Mitāwi’ remanded under custory pending investigation on the charges of indecent assault of the 9-years-old Muslim boy. An uneasy calmness overshadows the region in anticipation of renewed clashes.
Shaykh Bayūmī Ismā’īl, a leader at al-Jamā’ah al-Islāmīyah and member of the former People’s Assembly, demanded that the accused be punished in order to still the anger of Muslims in the region (Yūnis Darwīsh, al-Shurūq al-Jadīd, Mar. 5, p. 6). Read original text in Arabic
