CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt’s Coptic Pope Shenouda III appealed for calm on Monday as Christian protesters clashed with police for a third day in a row after a New Year’s Day bombing killed 21 churchgoers.
The unrest came as police in Egypt went on high alert and beefed up church security for Christmas, which Copts celebrate on January 7, as investigators hunted the perpetrators of the Alexandria church bombing.
Tensions spilled over again late on Monday as protesters in a northern Cairo neighbourhood threw rocks at police who tried to block a march by thousands of Copts.
“I call on our sons for calm, as calm can solve all issues,” the Coptic leader said in a television interview, the text of which also published by the official MENA news agency.
“The slogans used by some have transgressed all values and manners… and some have tried to use violence, while violence is absolutely not our method,” he said, blaming unspecified people he said were unrelated to his community.
Monday’s unrest came a day after 45 policemen were wounded in a confrontation with Coptic protesters outside St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo, where the Coptic pope has his headquarters.
Protesters also threw rocks at a minister who had come to visit the pope, and a health ministry official said 27 other people were wounded in the clash.
Other protesters on Sunday closed off streets in Cairo while demonstrators rioted in a southern Egyptian village, damaging cars and attacking a Muslim, witnesses said.
Coptic Christmas this year falls on Friday, the weekly Muslim day of prayer and rest, and Shenouda said he intended to say mass as usual on Christmas Eve.
“Not praying would mean that terrorism has deprived us of celebrating the birth of Christ,” Al-Ahram newspaper reported him as saying.
Egyptian security forces cancelled leave for senior officers and tightened surveillance of airports and ports to prevent suspects from leaving the country, as new checkpoints were set up across the nation.
Saturday’s attack also wounded 79 people when an apparent suicide car bomber detonated his payload as hundreds of worshippers were leaving Al-Qiddissin (The Saints) church in Alexandria after midnight.
It immediately sparked protests by angry Copts who called for protection and justice.
A security official said on Sunday that about 20 people were detained for questioning but there was no evidence that any of them was directly connected to the attack in the northern Egyptian city.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which came two months after an Al-Qaeda-linked group said it was behind a deadly Baghdad church hostage-taking and threatened Coptic Christians as well.
The group demanded the release of two women, both priests’ wives, saying the Coptic church was holding them against their will after they converted to Islam. The church denies they have converted.
An Al-Qaeda-linked website that published that threat posted in December a list of Coptic churches in Egypt and Europe it said should be attacked, including Al-Qiddissin church in Alexandria.
In Europe, a French security official said on Monday that police were investigating threats against Coptic churches and would reinforce security at 19 of the churches.
The Austrian interior ministry said it would secure the country’s seven Coptic churches.
Copts in Canada, where an estimated 255,000 Copts live, said they have hired private security contractors to protect churchgoers at Christmas.
President Hosni Mubarak has vowed to find those responsible for the bombing which he said targeted all Egyptians, regardless of their faith, and blamed “foreign hands.”
The bombing has further underscored the vulnerability of the Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80-million population and complain of discrimination.
Last year began with a massacre of six Copts and a Muslim security guard after a Coptic Christmas Eve mass and ended with two Coptic protesters killed in clashes during a protest over a Cairo church permit.
Some Coptic activists have accused the Cairo government of not doing enough to prevent incitement against the minority.
Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110103/wl_mideast_afp/egyptchristiansreligionattack_20110103214718
Category: Vulnerabilities/Exploits