Egypt / Violence against Christians

"The deadly New Year's bombing at the Coptic church in Alexandria sparks clashes between angry Christians and Egyptian riot police." (Reuters)

Coptic Church Bombing in Egypt is Latest Assault on Mideast Christians
By Borzou Daragahi and Amro Hassan
The Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2011
"A devastating New Year's Day terrorist bombing at a Coptic church in Egypt that killed 21 people was the latest in a spate of violent assaults against the Middle East's vulnerable Christian communities. The car bomb explosion also injured 79 people just after midnight Saturday as worshipers were leaving a New Year's Mass at the Saints Church in east Alexandria, Egyptian officials said. The bombing sparked street clashes between police and angry Copts, who hurled stones, stormed a nearby mosque and threw some of its books into the street. Security forces cordoned off the area and used tear gas to disperse the crowd. A witness told the state-run newspaper Al Ahram that a priest calmed the Copts and urged them to stay inside the church. The attack was among the deadliest on Egyptian Christians in recent memory and the worst terrorist incident in the country since 2006, and followed similar assaults this week in Iraq. All but eight of the injured and all of the fatalities in Alexandria were Christians, according to Egypt's Ministry of Health. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which was being described as a suicide bombing. The explosion, which appeared designed to inflict maximum civilian casualties, bore the hallmark of Al Qaeda militants. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused unnamed foreign elements of being behind the attack. 'This act of terrorism shook the country's conscience, shocked our feelings and hurt the hearts of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians,' he said in an emergency address to the nation. 'The blood of their martyrs in the land of Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim.'
The attack in the ancient Mediterranean coastal city was the latest in a wave of violence against once-resilient Christian communities in the Muslim world, some of which date back to antiquity. Christmas Eve assaults by Muslim extremists killed dozens of Christians in the Nigerian cities of Jos and Maiduguri. And Iraq's Christians have endured a relentless campaign of attacks and intimidation by the local branch of Al Qaeda. An Oct. 31 siege on a Baghdad church that killed at least 58 parishioners and staff members sparked a new Christian exodus from the Iraqi capital and the northern city of Mosul. About 1,000 families sought refuge in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave afterward, according to the United Nations. Further threats of violence by Islamic militants caused many Christians in Iraq to tone down Christmas celebrations, and attacks Thursday against 10 Christian targets left an elderly couple dead. Officials across the Middle East, including the ultraconservative Muslim governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia, condemned Saturday's attack, which was widely covered in television news broadcasts. In an annual New Year's speech at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI urged the faithful to stave off despair over such violence, but also demanded that governments do more to protect religious minorities. 'In front of the current threatening tensions, in front of especially the discrimination tyranny and religious intolerance, that today hit in particular the Christians, once again I deliver the pressing invite to not cave in to the depression and resignation,' Benedict said, adding that officials' 'words are not enough' in confronting religious intolerance. 'There must be a concrete and constant effort from leaders of nations,' he said. [...]"