I had this discussion with a retired police officer who was talking about discrimination in Egypt based on religion. I said that writing the religion in the national ID card is a dangerous tool to define and target Coptic Christians in Egypt. The man defended the importance of this information on the national ID card assuring that this is very useful to decide where to bury dead people whose families are unknown, whether in Muslim or Christian tombs!
Indeed, he was defending the right of the dead to be buried properly! Yet, he forgot that some living people among the Copts don’t have the right to live in their homes at all. This is true with several Copts whom are expelled from their homes for no reason except that the fanatics don’t want to see them around anymore.
The village of Kafr Darwish in Beni Suef has witnessed religious conflict over the past week, following the alleged insulting of Islam by a Coptic man on Facebook, however the accused man denied the account assuring his cell phone was stolen before the post was made.
Ayman Youssef Tawfiq was accused of posting cartoons online that are offensive to the Prophet Mohamed.
This was more than enough to mobilise fanatic mobs to attack Coptic homes in the village with rocks and Molotov cocktails, leading to numerous fires in houses and the destruction of one car.
This has happened several times before in several places all over Egypt. However, this time was slightly different as days after the conflict, meetings were held in the village, but the outcome was the forcible displacement of Youssef and four of his relatives’ families, under the auspices of security manager, the governor and the mayor. Despite the meeting, a further 10 homes were reported by Coptic sources as having been burned in ongoing attacks according to Daily News Egypt newspaper.
It’s worth mentioning that Ayman is an illiterate person who usually lives in Jordan who was accused of sharing the picture by locals at his village in Beni Suef when he returned. At first, a case was filed against him and the people in the village wanted to charge him with a fine. They later changed their minds and decided they wanted him to leave
It’s really painful to be forced to leave your home, and never return back. But, it’s even more painful to know that the decision to expel the families was made with the authorisation of the authorities in the area. Moreover, security agencies rejected the return of displaced Coptic families to their village in Beni Suef fearing they are not able to protect them if they return. I don’t know if they are even willing to protect them.
