EGYPT CALLSFOR NEW look at Morsi PRISON eSCAPE
Egypt Calls for New Look at Morsi Prison Escape
Published: July 11, 2013
(Page 2 of 2)
Islamist electoral victories after the revolution that ousted Mr. Mubarak alarmed Christians, and many participated in the protests against Mr. Morsi. But they by no means were a majority of the millions who joined the rallies that preceded his fall.
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But that did not stop extremists from blaming Christians for the change in government.
“They thought Christians played a big role in the protests and in the army’s intervention to topple Morsi, so this is revenge for that,” said Ishaq Ibrahim, who has documented the violence for the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
In some places, Christians were warned not to participate in the anti-Morsi protests.
Fliers distributed in the upper Egypt province of Minya, documented by the rights group, said that “one liter of gas can light up your gold, wood, plumbing, tractor and carpentry shops, buses, cars, gardens and maybe houses, churches, schools, agricultural fields and workshops.”
They were signed “people who care for the country.”
After Mr. Morsi’s ouster, Islamist mobs in the village of Dagala looted one church, burned a building belonging to another and surrounded Christian homes, shattering their windows with rocks and clubs, the group said.
After one Christian man shot at the attackers from his roof, they dragged his wife from the house and shot her. She is in a hospital.
“The police came the day after the events, and they didn’t do anything,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “People prevented the fire engines from coming in so they couldn’t do anything.”
In the village of Naga Hassan near Luxor, Muslim mobs invaded Christian homes and set them on fire. Security forces arrived to evacuate the women, but left the men, four of whom were subsequently stabbed and beaten to death, Mr. Ibrahim said.
One of the men, Emile Nessim, was a local organizer for tamarrod, the “rebellion” petition campaign that collected signatures and called for the anti-Morsi protests.
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