U.S. Copts Association

By Robeir al-Faris

A textbook used by the first-year students at Cairo University’s faculty of arts is the History of the Arab Islamic State , authored by none other than Mohamed Barakat al-Biali who heads the Islamic History Department at the same faculty.
In 308 large-size pages, the book tackles Islamic history from the Mohammedan [prophetic] mission until the fall of the Umayyad State, with the life of the Prophet Mohamed taking up 123 pages. Given that the book is a history textbook taught in a civil-not a religious-university, one would assume it would stick to historical facts. But this is far from the case; the book brims with material that lies strictly within the domain of faith. Christian students must acknowledge in the examinations that the Torah and the Bible currently in use are misquotations of previous versions that included prophesies of the coming of Mohamed and that have consequently been disfigured by ‘Zionists’, and that the only true religion before God is Islam.
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By Nader Shukry

In the wee hours of dawn last Monday, the police knocked on the door of Bahiya Nagy al-Sissy in the small east-Delta town of Mit Ghamr, woke the family up, and arrested her. Bahiya is a 34-year old Coptic peasant woman, and she was caught in order to serve a three year prison sentence she was handed, together with her 36-year-old sister Shadya, in absentia in 2000 by a criminal court. Bahiya’s and Shadya’s crime: forgery, even though there were no forged documents to indict them in the first place. The two sisters were born Christian, had lived and had married as Christians, and had Christian children. The court, however, considered that they should have been Muslim according to their father’s brief conversion to Islam more than thirty years ago. Shadya and Bahiya had then been children and were ignorant of their father’s conversion, especially that he later reverted to his original Christianity. The story was kept secret by the father, but surfaced in 1996 when Ramadan Hassan Hussein, a forger, was arrested and, among his confessions, related how he had helped Sissy acquire Christian identity papers which were practically almost impossible to obtain once he had reverted to Christianity.

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Egypt opens ration card system to extra 17 million people to contain growing public discontent.
By Cynthia Johnson - CAIRO

Egypt has opened its ration card system to an extra 17 million people and doubled the amount of rice that card holders receive in an effort to counter the effects of rising food prices.

The global prices of staple foods have risen more than 40 percent in the last year causing shortages, hoarding and riots in many developing countries and prompting the United Nations to warn of malnutrition and social unrest.
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‘Mubarak increases salaries by 30% and a few days later you find that prices have gone up by 40%.’
CAIRO - Already stunned by skyrocketing prices, Egyptians voiced despair on Tuesday after the government raised duties on fuel and cigarettes in a bid to pay for a promised public sector wage increase.

“Cigarettes don’t matter - you can live without them. But, for the rest, it’s impossible,” shoe polisher Gamal Ahmed, 42, said in central Cairo.
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Rising food cost has plunged government into crisis with far-reaching social consequences.
By Alain Navarro - CAIRO

As popular anger over rising inflation threatens to boil over, the Egyptian government has opted for a solution that could actually add fuel to the fire - raising both salaries and taxes.

On Monday, the government voted to raise the cost of fuel and tobacco by between 30 and 50 percent, in order to finance a May 1 decision by President Hosni Mubarak to raise public workers’ salaries by 30 percent.
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Analysts say social tensions in Egypt may drive ruling elite to look into other scenarios of Mubarak’s succession.
By Alaa Shahine - CAIRO

Social tensions in Egypt over the past year have eroded overwhelming expectations that Gamal Mubarak will succeed his father President Hosni Mubarak at the helm of the most populous Arab country, analysts say.
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Pope Shenuda III has left for US to have medical treatment after reportedly suffering from kidney pain.
CAIRO - The head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenuda III, has left for the United States for medical treatment, the Coptic Orthodox Lay Council which manages the church’s affairs said.

The 84-year-old patriarch left Cairo late on Monday on an unscheduled trip to Cleveland, Ohio, Dr Tharwat Bassily of the council said, on what he said was a “routine check-up”.
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News outlets call Egyptian President a hero amid rising public fury over country’s state of economy.
By Jailan Zayan - CAIRO

President Hosni Mubarak celebrates his 80th birthday on Sunday amid a wave of popular discontent marked by a call for Egyptians to stay at home in protest at price hikes and curbs on freedom.

But the call for the nationwide strike - the second in a month - failed to draw any response as Egyptians went to work as normal and Cairo traffic was heavy.
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Nader Shukry-Emad Khalil

For Copts, the fortnight preceding Easter is usually a busy, happy time of preparation for the major feast of the Resurrection and the pharaonic-old spring feast of Sham al-Nessim. This year, however, the happy expectation was marred by incidents of sectarian hatred in two villages some 500 kilometres apart along the eternal Nile valley.

Palm Sunday attack
In the village of Qasr Hur close to the monastery of Abu-Fana in Minya some 250km south of Cairo, Copts were celebrating Palm Sunday in the village church. As Holy Mass ended early afternoon, the congregation began leaving the church and heading to their homes, in preparation for the evening Pascha service which is held every evening during Passion Week. The last group to leave was suddenly attacked by a group of men carrying sticks and clubs. Five Copts were injured: Samuel Kamel, Ashraf Menassa, Ishaq Nessim, Hany Samir and Baha’ Samir.
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There is heightened security in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, following a call by activists for a strike in protest against rising food prices.

Extra police were also deployed in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla el-Kobra, which saw clashes last month between striking textile workers and police.
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