U.S. Copts Association

By   Metwalli Salem and Mahmoud Gawish   

Ayman Nour, the founder of Ghad (tomorrow) Party, continued his visits to Egypt’s governorates within the framework of his campaign under the name “Door-knocking in the home.” He visited Alexandria yesterday and wandered in its streets and beaches. He held open dialogues with people, the most of whom were holidaymakers, on their problems, reform, and other issues.

In exclusive statements to Al-Masry Al-Youm yesterday, Nour stressed that his tour to Alexandria included all places, beaches and markets to start his preparation for the upcoming presidential elections and announce what he called a campaign of knocking doors in 2009 under the title “Be with us because the right is with us.”
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(AINA) — Violence against Christian Copts erupted again at dawn on Friday, 3 July 2009, in the village of Guirgis Bey, Akfahssi, El-Fashn. Coptic priests accused the Egyptian State Security apparatus of masterminding the incident.

“The village Muslims circulated a ‘rumour’ that the Copts will convert the social services building belonging to the Coptic Diocese of Beba and El-Fashn into a church, resulting in Muslims completely burning down two houses belonging to Christians and attempting to burn down two cars belonging to the church and the priest by pouring kerosene over them,” said Diocese spokesman Reverend Abdul Quddus Hanna to Copts United.
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WASHINGTON (BP)–An Egyptian court has granted custody of Coptic Christian twins to their mother but also ruled that the twins must be considered Muslim on their identification cards.Kamilia Gaballah, the mother of Andrew and Mario, has fought with her ex-husband Medhat Ramses Labib over custody and alimony support of their sons in more than 40 different cases since he left her and converted to Islam so that he could remarry in 1999. In 2007, Labib changed the religious affiliation on the boys’ birth certificates from Christian to Muslim without their consent.
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But twins will keep father’s Muslim identity in their records, creating future problems.

LOS ANGELES, July 1 (Compass Direct News) - A Christian mother in Egypt has won custody of her twin sons from her estranged husband, who had converted to Islam and claimed them according to Islamic legal precepts.

The now 15-year-old boys, however, will still be considered Muslims despite their desire to remain Christian.

On June 15 the Egyptian Court of Cassation ruled that Kamilia Gaballah could retain custody of her sons Andrew and Mario, even though the father converted to Islam and the boys’ religion also changed as a result.
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The terrible consequence of forced ‘reconciliation’ in the absence of truth or justice

By Elizabeth Kendal

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 011
Special to ASSIST News Service

AUSTRALIA (ANS) – Since early 2007 the Egyptian government has been appeasing Muslim fundamentalists by settling matters of sectarian conflict out of court in line with Islamic Sharia law. That prohibits Christians from bringing evidence against Muslims. The government brokers ‘reconciliation’ sessions where the Christians are forced to drop all the charges they are making (arson, looting, assault, kidnap, robbery, criminal damage, rioting, torture, rape, murder) in exchange for Muslim guarantees of ‘peace’.
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By   Fathia el-Dakhakhni   

The American Freedom House Organization criticized President Barack Obama’s administration for demanding to reduce the funds allocated for the support of democracy in Egypt by half from the 2010 budget.
“Demanding to reduce the funds of civil society organizations in Egypt is very frustrating,” the organization said.
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PARIS, France (CNN) – Al Qaeda threatened to “take revenge” on France “by every means and wherever we can reach them” because of a debate in France over whether the burqa, a traditional Islamic woman’s covering, violates French law, according to a statement posted on radical Islamist Web sites.

“We will not tolerate such provocations and injustices, and we will take our revenge from France,” said the statement, signed by Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, calling himself “commander of al Qaeda in North Africa [Islamic Maghreb].”

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AINA

Another incident of a Muslim mob attacking, torching and looting Coptic Christian homes and shops took place today in the village of Meet El-Korashy, Meet Ghamr, after a Muslim young man died following a fight with a Coptic shopkeeper. State Security cordoned off the whole village and placed it under curfew. The Shopkeeper and his family were arrested and charged with murder.
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CAIRO, July 1 (Reuters) - Police have arrested 37 Muslims and Christians from a village in Egypt’s Nile Delta in connection with the killing of a Muslim man and violence that followed, witnesses and security sources said on Wednesday. The 18-year-old Muslim died on Tuesday after a fight a day earlier, leading to the arrest of a Christian family of a father, mother and two sons, as well as three Muslim men.
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by Mary Abdelmassih
AINA

(AINA) — The persecution and discrimination against the Christian Copts in Egypt takes many forms; the most obvious manifestation is limiting their freedom to practice their religious rites, sometimes through violent means.

Many believe such acts of violence takes place due to the Egyptian Government’s attitude of failing to apply deterrent laws on assailants on one hand, and the increase in ‘Muslim mob justice’ of taking the law in their own hands without fear of retributive justice, on the other.
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