New York Times
April 7, 2013
DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and
KAREEM FAHIM
CAIRO — Police officers firing tear gas joined with a rock-throwing
crowd fighting a group of Christian mourners Sunday in a battle that
escalated into an attack on Egypt’s main Coptic Christian Cathedral that lasted for hours.
It was the third day of an outburst of sectarian violence that is
testing the pledges of Egypt’s Islamist president to protect the
country’s Christian minority. By nightfall, at least one person had died
from the day’s clashes, bringing the weekend’s death toll to six.
Later Sunday, President Mohamed Morsi
called the Coptic pope, Tawadros II, to reassure him. “I consider any
aggression against the cathedral an aggression against me personally,”
Mr. Morsi said, according to state media.
The president ordered an investigation of the violence and instructed
security forces “to protect the citizens inside the Cathedral,” state
media reported, and he pledged to protect both Muslims and Christians.
The violence began Friday when a sectarian dispute in the town of Khusus
outside Cairo escalated into a gunfight that killed four Christians and
a Muslim — the first major episode of deadly sectarian violence since
Mr. Morsi’s election last year. Hundreds of Christians and sympathetic
Muslims gathered at the cathedral Sunday for the four Christians’
funeral, chanting for the removal from power of Mr. Morsi and his
Islamist allies.
“With our blood and our soul we will sacrifice ourselves for the cross,” the crowd intoned.
Clashes erupted immediately after the service between the emerging
mourners and a crowd outside the cathedral. It was unclear who started
the violence. But later dozens of riot police with armored vehicles and
tear-gas canons appeared to enter the fray on the side of crowds of
young Muslim men who were throwing rocks and fire bombs at the mourners.
In what seemed like a siege of the cathedral, tear-gas canisters fell
inside the walls of its compound, sending gas into the sanctuary and two
nuns running for shelter in a nearby loading dock.
Later, some of the young civilians who had been attacking the cathedral
switched to taunts, making lewd gestures involving the sign of the
cross. The riot policemen made no attempt to stop them, either from
throwing rocks toward the cathedral or insulting the Christians.
“The police are not trying to protect us or do anything to stop the
violence,” said Wael Eskandar, a Coptic Christian activist. “On the
contrary, they are actively aiding the people in civilian clothes”
attacking the Christians, he said.
Dozens rushed to defend the cathedral, and many pulled back their
sleeves at the iron entrance gate to display the cross that many Copts
tattoo on their wrists.
Groups of young men stood on the cathedral walls and rooftops nearby,
throwing fire bombs and the shards of bricks at the riot police. At
least two of the young men on the church grounds carried what appeared
to be crude pistols. Others prepared crates full of fire bombs.
The Interior Ministry, in a statement on its Web site, said the mourners
had started the violence and that the riot police intervened to stop
it. “Some mourners vandalized a number of cars, which led to clashes and
fights with the people of the area,” the statement said, adding,
“Interference to separate the clashing parties is ongoing.”
Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s roughly 85
million citizens, were already anxious about the dominance of elections
by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood since the ouster of President Hosni
Mubarak, the former secular autocrat.
Not that sectarian animosities were absent under Mr. Mubarak. Copts
suffered from discrimination as well as recurring episodes of sectarian
violence, and the Mubarak government worsened the problem by denying the
existence of domestic sectarianism and pinning blame on either local
conflicts or foreign conspiracies.
Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have sometimes appeared to
understand that as Islamists they have more to prove to Egypt’s Copts.
During elections, Brotherhood candidates have emphasized their
commitment to equal citizenship and security for Copts, even sending
young Brotherhood members to stand guard outside churches at a Christmas
service one year.
When a dispute over a shirt burned at the laundry exploded into a
sectarian battle that killed a Christian and damaged several properties
last year, Mr. Morsi departed from the Mubarak script, sending a legal
adviser to meet with the Christians, instructing the local governor to
compensate the victims and asking the prosecutor to investigate without
prejudice.
But on Sunday, many Copts blamed Mr. Morsi for the violence. “Who is
responsible for the surroundings of the cathedral being unsecured for
more than five hours today?” demanded Bishop Bakhomious, a senior Coptic
cleric who had been acting pope until the designation of Tawadros II.
“If the security services want to know who is behind these events, they
will.”
It is unclear how much practical control Mr. Morsi exercises over the
police. He has done little to reform the force left over from Mr.
Mubarak despite continuing complaints about its abuses. A rash of police
strikes has showcased widespread insubordination, and the riot police
lack training in effective crowd control. On Sunday, they sometimes
appeared to fire tear gas at random into the surrounding neighborhood.
But even before the police joined the fray, human rights advocates said
Mr. Morsi and his party had failed to confront the sectarianism driving
the violence. Until late Sunday, both Mr. Morsi and his party appeared
to fall into the Mubarak pattern, denouncing the violence but without
acknowledging the problem of sectarianism. Instead, the Islamists
suggested a conspiracy by some unknown party to sow dissent among
Egyptians.
Only on Sunday night, after the clashes had subsided, did Mr. Morsi
publicly acknowledge the role of sectarian aggression or personally
pledge to protect the Copts. “He seems to have begun to realize the
scale of this,” said Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative
for Personal Rights.
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