From: essa@cs.scarolina.edu (Ossama Ahmed Essa)
Subject: Re: NY Times article on the Copts (longish)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 29 Jul 92 03:27:43 GMT

mjkugel@iastate.edu (Michael J Kugel) writes:

>The following article is reprinted from Monday's New York Times.
>I generally don't believe in posting news articles, but I felt this was
>the best way to initiate a discussion on the treatment of Christian
>minorities in Islamic countries.

[text deleted]
>      
>                       Attacks Occur Daily

>In the last four months more than 30 people have been killed in Asyul
>Province, which embraces this town, including 13 Christians massacred by
>militants one morning in May.  Assaults on Christians and the burning of
>their shops are a daily occurrence.

 this says 30 people including 13 christian ...... 
 Does it mean all 30 people are christians and it happened that 13 were killed
on one day? 
 Or does it mean that 30 people were killed and 13 of them are christians?

 If it's the first, which means none of the Moslems were killed, then it is
not complete. At least 50 moslem were reported killed in action either against
the government forces or the Christian militants. This report never mentioned
the Christian militants.
 If it's the second, that means that more than 17 moslems were killed. This
is still incomplete.

 More than 3000 moslems were arrested for suspicion of being members of the
Islamic group. 

>In this farm village Christians say they are forced by militants to pay
>monthly protection fees to avoid harassment and are forbidden to hold
>public weddings and funerals.  Many content they are denied jobs because
>of their religion.

  About protection fees, I can't say anything except it is bullshit. Everyone
in Egypt knows that there is no such thing like this. The Islamic groups in 
Egypt were always accused of many things, but protection fees is just nonsense.

  About people denied jobs because of religion happens for both moslems and
christians. It also happens very rarely compared to race discrimination in
many of the western countries. I challenge ANYBODY to claim that chrtistians
are denied any of their rights like education, health care, housing, etc.

>The sectarian violence, which is creeping into Christian neighborhoods
>in Cairo, eerily resembles the successful drive by Muslim leaders to
>drive Jews from the Arab world three and four decades ago.

Poor guy who wrote this report. If he just did his homework, he would realize
that by the time the Jews were leaving Egypt, almost all the Moslem leaders
were in Jail. More than 50,000 of them were behind the sun.

>The new measures follow the assassinations of Farag Foda, a leading
>intellectual who criticized the militants, and several police and
>Government officials.  The also come on the heels of two abortive
>attacks on groups of tourists visiting Luxor.

  Oh, Farag Fouda is intellectual. Anyone who writes against Islam is considered
intellectual. If this guy ever read a book, or even one page of what he wrote
about, I'm certain that he will never call him intellectual.
  If this guy ever tried to look to the other side of the coin, he would 
know that what people say is not always true. The government is more than 
happy for the existence of such groups to always use them as a Hanger to hang
their dirty clothes on.

>Younis Zaki Ashamalla, 35, a farmer, slowly picked through his gutted
>home at the edge of the village.  A dozen fundamentalists broke into his
>house last month when he was in the fields.  They beat his wife with
>sticks and poured gasoline over the furnishing before setting the house
>ablaze. 

>``They screamed that there is no God but God, and that Jews and
>Christians were infidels,'' his wife said.  ``Before they left they
>slashed me with a knife.  We lost everything, even our chickens.  Now we
>are living with a neighbor while we try to get money to leave.''

>In the Abnoub al-Harmam hospital outside Asyut, where two Coptic priests
>were killed last year, Kamel Azmi was recovering from a beating that
>left his right arm broken.

>He limped painfully to the hallway to speak.

>``I did not tell the doctors what really happened,'' he said softly.
>``I am afraid the fundamentalists will come and get me here.  Even the
>children report what you say these days.''

Again, ANY EGYPTIAN KNOWS THAT THIS IS BULLSHIT.

  Finally, I'm wondering how come the reporter didn't mention anything about
the moslems (intervies, losses, etc.)?

  I think I have the answer. It is either the person who posted this report
edited it, or the reporter is biased. I didn't read the original report (which
I am planning to) but I will go with the second possibility since NY Times is
well known of being Jewish Controled or to be more specific the Zionists. 
  Those people always try divid the Egyptians. Why not? after all they still
think that both the Moslems and the Christian in Egypt are occuping their
promise land and one day they will kick both of them out of there.

  Do think if Moslems really think that the Christians should be killed and 
tortured, wouldn't it be easier for them if they just killed all the
Christians when they came to Egypt 1400 years ago. Egyptians lived together for
long time and there was never Moslem-Christian national war in the history.
There was always common struggle among the Egyptians to fight the British
occupation (the British were christians) and many churches were used to hide
the arms and the guerrilas.

  There are always some incidents where people use the religion to cover the
facts. It is always individual cases. I was never my and your religion. It's
really pathetic to find people fall victim to such croc.

Ossama Essa

Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic