U.S. Copts Association

Funeral incident leads to disproportionate response from Muslim mobs, police.

By Michael Larson

ISTANBUL, November 21 (Compass Direct News) - Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.
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(AINA) — A Christian bishop received a threatening letter written by Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Muslim group affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The letter ordered the Christians to leave Iraq en masse and stated it is sending a final warning to Christians in Baghdad and other Iraqi governorates to leave Iraq permanently.

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This report addresses a number of significant developments seen in Egypt in the field of
freedom of religion and belief during the months of July, August, and September of 2008.
It documents an expansion in the geographical scope of sectarian violence and tensions,
reaching from Shubra al-Kheima in Greater Cairo and the district of Atfih in Giza to Naga’
Hamadi in Qena, al-Fashn in Beni Soueif, and Samalut and Mallawi in Minya. The report
also documents interference by security agencies to prevent night prayers and vigils during Ramadan in some governorates and to unlawfully prevent the renovation of churches in the governorates of Beni Soueif and Qena.
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Bedouin squatters live on waste left from Egypt’s glitzy coastal tourist resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.
SHARM AL-SHEIKH, Egypt - Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt’s glitzy coastal tourist resort, may seem an unlikely home for Bedouin squatters, but they too live off tourism, or rather the waste left in its wake.

A 20-minute drive from the main highway takes you to a Bedouin squatter area on the city’s outskirts from where Nawal, a young woman, sets out early each day with her younger sister for the main refuse tip, to sift through rubbish.
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The second-in-command of Islamic militant network al-Qaeda has called on Muslims to harm “criminal” America.

In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy accused US President-elect Barack Obama of betraying his Muslim roots.

He likened him to a “house slave” - who had chosen to align himself with the “enemies” of Islam.
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By   Amr Bayoumi   

The Coptic Church has announced it has published a book to respond to the novel “Azazil” by Dr. Youssef Zaydan, director of the Center and Museum of Manuscripts at Alexandria University. 

Holy Synod Secretary and Damietta and Kafr Sheikh Archbishop Bishoy said the book [Response to Dr. Zaydan and his novel ‘Azazil’] would be on sale at the end of this month.
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A court in Egypt has ordered the government to suspend gas exports to Israel, although it is not clear whether the ruling will be heeded.

It started piping gas to Israel earlier in 2008 under a deal to supply 1.7bn cubic metres a year over 20 years.
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By   Wael Ali   

The former chairman of the Democracy Development Group, Naggad el-Baraei, has accused Social Solidarity Minister Ali el-Moselhi of seeking to take over NGOs in Egypt.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday to announce the stance of human rights organizations on the Law 84/2002 on associations - currently being amended by the National Democratic Party (NDP), he said the committee formed by the minister to amend this law is flawed, as most of its members are appointed by and close to the NDP and the government.
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St Mark’s Church in Alexandria has a deep-rooted history. It dates back to St Mark who, from his base in Alexandria, helped spread Christianity further afield.
In his book on the history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, Anba Sawirus Ben Moqafaa, Bishop of Ashmonein and a major historian of the 10th century, wrote that a church had been in existence since AD62 at a place that since the pharaonic era had been called Bokalia, meaning ‘cow pasture’.
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MARED (Egyptians against Religious Discrimination) was recently joined by some 30 rights groups in issuing a declaration concerning the situation of the twins Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramsis.
“The verdict issued on 24 September 2008 by the Appeal Court of Alexandria, which stipulated placing the twins Andrew and Mario in their father’s custody, is another kind of discrimination practised against Copts in Egypt,” the statement said.
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