American Egyptian Coptic Christians to organize a peaceful demonstration, on July 16, 2008, in front of the White House, to protest violent attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt
Written by Coptic organizations in the United States
Coptic Organizations in America along with activists from Egypt, the Middle East, Europe and the United states, will conduct a peaceful demonstration in front of the White House on Wednesday July 16, 2008, from 12:00 noon to 4:00 pm.
The purpose is to convey, to world's opinion and international human rights organizations, the systematic and continuous persecution, murders, discrimination, marginalization, and the organized (by the security police, and muslim organizations) kidnapping of Coptic girls inflicted on Coptic Christians of Egypt by the Egyptian government and Muslim “extremists,” which in many cases represent the whole "moderate" population of a village or a town, following recent killings and attacks on Christian homes, businesses and institutions.
We will expose the persecution of the Coptic Christians of Egypt, including unprovoked attacks against Coptic families, churches, monasteries, homes and businesses. During the past few weeks, news agencies worldwide reported attacks against the Copts in towns and cities of Zaitoun, Alexandria, Abu Fana, Dafash, El Menia, Luxor, and Fayoum. The situation became so bad to the extent that attempts were made to force Coptic monks to denounce their faith under torture and death threats.
Dear Brothers and Sisters
Come join us in condemning the oppression and ethnic cleansing inflicted on the Coptic Christians of Egypt.
Many of our brethren pay the ultimate price which is their lives for their faith and freedom of religion, and we only ask you to sacrifice just a few hours of your time to declare your support of your oppressed brothers and sisters in Egypt by deed not just talk.
In addition to violent attacks by Muslim extremists, the Copts of Egypt suffer from discriminatory laws and practices imposed on them by the Egyptian government. These practices include restrictions on church building, under representation in Parliament (less than 1%), and discrimination in jobs and promotions. Most high ranking jobs in Egypt are out of reach for Copts. [These are issues that are too numerous to mention here and will be the subject of a book that will be published in America soon by Coptic organizations and American researchers.]
We call on the American and International Media, human rights
organizations, churches and Christian organizations and all freedom loving people to join our demonstration to send a message to the Egyptian government to stop persecuting the Copts and take responsibility in providing adequate protection for them.
Use the gift that God gave you and be an honest witness to what happens in Egypt. God, who gave you freedom in America, gave you also the responsibility to defend the right of your people in Egypt for freedom and security.
We invite our Ethiopian and Sudanese brothers and sisters in the Washington DC area to take part in this demonstration to defend the persecuted Coptic Church. [Ethiopian and Sudanese Christians belong to the same Coptic Church.]
Those who live in the Washington DC area may go directly to the location of the demonstration. Those who don’t have transportation may gather at St. Mark Coptic Church in Virginia at 10:00A.M., Wednesday July 16, 2008. Those who are coming from other States may go directly to the location of the demonstration. Those who are coming from New Jersey and New York may use buses provided by the American Coptic Association in New Jersey.
We will be joined in Washington D.C. by several Congressmen and Senators, including Congressman Frank Wolf who introduced House Resolution 1303, condemning the Egyptian government’s human rights violations, and several TV stations will cover the demonstration.
For more information, please contact:
Mounir Bishay, Los Angeles (310) 641- 3387
Jacob Keryakos, New Jersey (732) 414- 9451
Fayez Khella, New Jersey (201) 424- 0278
Dr. Dawoud, New Jersey (201) 424- 1001
Atef Jacoub, Washington DC (703) 863- 7069
Selim Naguib, Montreal (514) 485- 4550
Atef Macar, Chicago (630) 878- 1333
The use of the buses from the different locations is offered for ALL who want to join our demonstration, Copts and non Copts. Please feel welcomed to call the Coptic organization representative nearest you for the locations and schedules of the buses.
A reminder for those who are not aware of history: Copts are the native people of Egypt, the descendants of the Ancient Egyptians. Egypt was majority Copts, beside a large and thriving Jewish community. The Jews were driven out of Egypt by the mid fifties after confiscating all their properties, and since then the successive muslim governments of Egypt are working according to plan, "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people."
It's Egyptian muslims that spread the ideology of jihad through Al Azhar missionary sheiks worldwide and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Saudis were the financiers. It's no coincidence that Mohammad Atta, the leader of the 911 (glorious ghazwa) massacre, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, serving life in America for the 1993 WTC bombing, Sheik El Qaradawi, and Zawahri (the brain), just to name few illustrious ones are all Egyptians.
We are certain that the (near) future will prove to everyone that the Copts fight against islamic terror in their own country is not separate from the war on terror in America. For islam, we’re in the same boat.
Coptic Christians in Egypt Under Assault
7/11/2008
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
"The Copts of Egypt are the largest Christian minority in the Middle East. They number about 18% of Egypt's population of 80 million."
WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Christian Newswire reports that there will be a rally to show solidarity with Coptic Christians in Egypt who face increasing persecution:
"Rally in Support of Coptic Christians in Egypt
American Egyptian Coptic Christians to organize a peaceful demonstration, on July 16, 2008, in front of the White House, to protest violent attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt."
Contact: Mounir Bishay, 310-641-3387
"Coptic Organizations in America along with activists from Egypt, the Middle East, Europe and the United states, will conduct a peaceful demonstration in front of the White House on Wednesday July 16, 2008, from 12:00 noon to 4:00 pm."
"The purpose is to convey, to world's opinion and international human rights organizations, recent incidents of persecution, discrimination and marginalization inflicted on Coptic Christians of Egypt by the Egyptian government and Muslim extremists."
"The Copts of Egypt are the largest Christian minority in the Middle East. They number about 18% of Egypt's population of 80 million. Not a month passes by without their churches, homes and businesses being attacked."
"According to a study made by Ibn Khaldoun Research Center in Cairo (headed by Dr. Saad El Deen Ibrahim, a muslim) over 240 major attacks against the Copts took place during the period from 1972- 2003." [ Emphasis between coma added.]
"Magdy Khalil, a writer and researcher, estimates that as a result of these attacks more than 4000 Copts were killed or injured." [And not one muslim criminal was convicted for any crime committed against Christian Copts based on the Sharia law, "No muslim should be punished for killing a kafir."]
"This, in addition to damages to Coptic properties that could exceed hundreds of millions of dollars, during the last three decades alone. Hundreds of Coptic girls are abducted and forced to embrace Islam while security forces act as accomplices and helpers of the criminals."
"During the last few weeks, the extremists attacked a jewelry store owned by Copts killing four Copts. The extremists also attacked Abu Fana Coptic monastery injuring many monks and kidnapping three."
"The abducted monks were tortured, while they were ordered to announce abandoning their Christian faith and embracing Islam. In Fayoum , Muslim extremists attacked homes and businesses owned by Coptic Christians."
"A Coptic Christian man was killed by Muslims in the town of Dafash, governorate of Minia, in the southern part of Egypt, and a 17 year old youngman was slaughtered in Luxor beside the injured, and destructions of homes and businesses." [And the ongoing Mohammad's famous legacy of kidnapping, raping, and forced islamization of Coptic girls. Known since the time of the pedophile prophet as, "Spreading islam through the vagina."]
Future demonstrations, July 23rd in New York and Rome, Italy
The association Voice of the Copts would like to inform you that on July 23, 2008 at 12:00 noon next to the United Nation building in New York City, intend to have a peaceful protest against the criminal acts occurred in Egypt against Copts (Christians of Egypt) and other religious minorities.
After gathering and protesting we plan to move towards the Egyptian council to bring our protest to the Egyptian authority.
The same action will take place at the same time in Rome Italy, next to the Egyptian Embassy in Rome.
Herewith, Voice of the Copts is inviting all of whom believe and fight for human rights to join us in our peaceful but firm request that we want to bring to the whole world in order to protect innocent people oppressed and discriminated only because their faith is different than the majority. We also protest against the carelessness of the Egyptian government to protect archeologist and ancient Coptic Monasteries and Churches.
Pictures of the demonstration in Athens, Greece (to view full set of pictures here)
Pictures of the demonstration in Vienna, Austria (to view full set of pictures here)
Demonstration in Sidney, Australia (to view full set of pictures here)
To view Ottawa, Canada demonstration here
To view the Netherlands demonstration here
To view Paris, France demonstration here
Words are not enough to express our deepest thanks to all non Copts in every European country, Ottawa Canada, California US, and Sidney Australia who felt that our fight against the jihadists’ terror is one and the same, and joined us in a beautiful show of solidarity. We also thank all members of parliaments and government officials who addressed the crowds on behalf of their governments, and raised the fully documented persecution of the Copts of Egypt with their respective governments and parliaments with our demands. We can’t forget to express our thanks to all the media and particularly the TV stations that covered every demonstration.
The last two weeks we were practically on the road with different Coptic organizations in the US and Canada, and Never before have I witnessed such enormous efforts, unity, activism, and synchronization among Copts in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia with a sincere desire to expose to the Western world, which is also our world, what many still ignore to their own detriment.
We lived with islam for 1400 years, and the history and legacy of 1400 years can’t lie. I can put it in a more familiar formula: what you see (the islam that Copts are exposing to the world) is what you’ll get.
Last but not least, the whole Egyptian media, the hyenas of the regime, are mounting the most vicious attack. Accusing the Copts of the Diaspora, particularly the US Copts, with the whole list of the too familiar accusations, used and recycled for the last fifty years, starting by being the biggest renegades for not realizing that the Copts of Egypt are the luckiest minority in the world since the light of islam shined with its love and tolerance on Egypt. And we’re only denying this to mount a vicious defamation campaign against the good reputation of Egypt and ruin the brotherly 1400 years of peaceful cohabitation between Copts and muslims. Ending with the all time classic of being used in a Zionist-American imperialistic antagonistic capitalistic conspirationistic anti-islamistic schemetistic operation to destabilize Egypt according to a hidden Zionist-American plan.
Their aim, as usual, is to blackmail the Coptic Church authorities into denying any mistreatment or injustice, and denounce any external interference. But that too is a very old game that all Western governments are fully aware of. The problem with perpetual liars and deceivers is they think that the rest of the world is like them, with water melons on top of their shoulders instead of brains.
These facts have been posted almost a year ago, July 5, 2007, by Patrick Poole. Except for the increasing number of attacks on the Christian minorities in Muslims dominated countries, more loss of lives and properties, what is stated is more relevant now than ever before. It complements what we’ve been reporting on lately, and it deserves to be widely spread. It is definitely a must read, (thanks to Louis).
Islam’s Global War against Christianity
By Patrick Poole
From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren’t wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs.
Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the “Religion of Peace”: Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and Chaldean Christians in Iraq; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Evangelical and Orthodox Christians in Eastern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Armenian Orthodox Christians in Turkey; and Maronite Christians in Lebanon.
Several of these communities date back to the beginning decades of Christianity and all have weathered wave after wave of Islamic persecution for centuries and more, but in the very near future some will simply cease to exist. In our lifetime, the only trace of their past existence will be in footnotes in history books (and probably only Western history books at that).
Meanwhile, we in the West hear much from radical Islam’s apologists how the US is engaged in a war against Islam citing of our military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are lectured on the inviolability of the Muslim ummah and justifications of defensive jihad.
But an extensive search this past weekend of the websites of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Student Association, the Fiqh Council of North America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Committee - the most visible institutional representatives of Islam in America - found not a single mention or reference of the religious persecution of Christians by their Islamic co-religionists, thereby making them tacit co-conspirators in the Final Solution to the Christian problem in the Muslim world.
The global war on Christianity by Islam is so massive in size and scope that it is virtually impossible to describe without trivializing it. Inspired by Muslim Brotherhood ideology and fueled by billions of Wahhabi petrodollars, the religious cleansing of Christians from the Muslim world is continuing at a break-neck pace, as the following recent examples demonstrate.
Iraq: In the current issue of the American Spectator, Doug Bandow observes that centuries of dhimmitude have left Christians in the war-torn country without any means of self-defense. Washington policymakers have refused to lend assistance for fear of showing partiality, despite the murder of hundreds of Iraqi Christians, the kidnapping and torture of Christian clerics, the repeated bombings of Christian churches, the torching of Christian businesses, and the flight of close to half of the entire Iraqi Christian population since April 2003. Those who remain have been subject to the imposition of shari’a by the Shi’ite Mahdi Army and Sunni militias (al-Qaeda doesn’t bother with such niceties, preferring to murder them immediately instead), including the recent published threat in Mosul of killing one member of every Christian family in that city for Christian women not wearing the hijab and continuing to attend school. (Be sure to remember that the next time an Islamist apologist claims that the hijab is a symbol of women’s liberation.)
Egypt: Journalist Magdi Khalil chronicles in a new report (”Another Black Friday for the Coptic Christians of Egypt”) the campaign of violence directed against Christian Copts almost weekly immediately following Friday afternoon Muslim prayers. Inspired by Islamist imams preaching religious hatred in mosques all over the country and protected by government officials willing to look the other way, rampaging mobs of Muslims set upon Christians churches, businesses and individuals, from Alexandria to cities all the way up the Nile. Coptic holy days are also favorite times for Muslim violence, which the Egyptian media likes to describe as “sectarian strife” - as if it were actually a two-sided affair.
Gaza: Ethel Fenig recently noted here at American Thinker (”More Gaza Multiculturalism”) the systematic destruction of churches and desecration of Christian religious objects by Jihadia Salafiya following the HAMAS takeover of the Gaza Strip from their Fatah rivals and the imposition of Islamic rule. The head of Jihadia Salafiya told reporter Aaron Klein that any suspected Christian missionary activity in the area will be “dealt with harshly”. (Ynet News)
Saudi Arabia: According to the Arab News, a Sri Lankan Christian man barely escaped with his life in late May when he was found working in the city of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, which is officially barred to non-Muslims. In December, an Indian man had been sentenced to death for accidentally entering the city, but was spared after the Indian embassy made an urgent appeal to the Saudi Supreme Court.
Pakistan: In Islamabad, Younis Masih was sentenced last month to death under the country’s frequently invoked blasphemy laws, which were also used against six Christian women suspended from a nursing school after they were accused of desecrating a Quran. And as protests against Salman Rushdie’s knighthood raged, a Muslim mob armed with guns, axes and sticks attacked Christians worshipping in a Salvation Army church in Bismillahlpur Kanthan. (Associated Press; United Press International; Mission News Network)
Bangladesh: Almost a dozen Christian converts in the Nilphamari district were beaten last week by Muslim villagers wielding bricks and clubs, and threatened with death if they did not leave town immediately. Local hospitals subsequently refused them treatment. Christians in the area have also been prevented from using the only potable water well in the area after a pronouncement by religious authorities at the mosque in Durbachari. This came after 42 former Muslims were baptized as Christians in the local river on June 12. (Compass News Direct)
Malaysia: Government authorities demolished a church building on June 4th in Orang Asli settlement in Gua Musang in Ulu Kelantan, despite prior government approval of the project. The church was built on donated property after the entire village had converted to Christianity just a few months ago. Also in late May, the Malaysian high court ruled that Muslims who convert to Christianity must appeal to the religious shari’a courts to officially be deregistered as Muslims and reregistered as a Christians. (Journal Chretien; Associated Press)
Indonesia: Agence France Presse reported last month on an attack by the Islamic Anti-Apostate Movement, who stormed a church service in a Protestant church in the West Java town of Soreang. The AFP report notes that more than 30 churches have been forced to close in West Java and dozens more throughout the country in recent years due to Muslim violence, churches which were among the few spared during the outbreak of hostilities during 1997-1998, where hundreds of Christian churches were burned to the ground and never rebuilt.
Turkey: The Christian community is still reeling from the torture and ritual slaughter of three Protestants at a Christian publishing house in Malatya in April by an armed Islamist gang, which was preceded by the murder last year of Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon and the assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul in January. An additional six men allegedly associated with the same Muslim gang were arrested on May 30th for plotting an attack on a Christian pastor in Diyarbakir. (Lebanon Daily Star; ADKNI)
Cyprus: The Cyprus Mail reports that during a meeting last month in Rome the Archbishop of the Cypriot Greek Orthodox Church pleaded with the Vatican Secretary of State for the Pope’s assistance to pressure Turkish authorities in restoring and repairing Christian sites and churches in areas occupied since the invasion of the island nation by Turkey in July 1974 and the ethnic cleansing of 160,000 Greek Christian Cypriots.
Lebanon: More than 60,000 Christians have left the country since last summer’s war between Hezbollah and Israel, fearing the rise of both Sunni and Shi’ite extremism and terrorist activity. The Sunday Telegraph recently revealed the results of a poll finding that at least half of Lebanon’s Maronite community were considering leaving the country. More than 100,000 have already submitted visa applications at foreign embassies.
Algeria: In what is considered one of the more “moderate” Muslim regimes, Al-Quds Al-Arabi announced that the Algerian government has just issued regulations requiring advance permission for non-Muslim public events, following a 2006 law aimed at limiting Christian evangelism in the Kabylia region and the Sahara. (MEMRI )
Morocco: In the country that The Economist magazine in 2005 anointed “the best Arab democracy”, all Moroccans are considered Muslims at birth and face three years in prison if they attempt to convert. They are also prohibited from entering any of the few churches permitted to operate for the foreign inhabitants of the country. Moroccan Christians must operate covertly for fear of imprisonment by the government and attacks by Islamists. They cannot bury their dead in Christian cemeteries, and they must be married by Islamic authorities or face charges of adultery. Late last year, a 64 year-old German tourist, Sadek Noshi Yassa, was sentenced to six months in jail and fined for missionary activity. (Journal Chretien)
Nigeria: Police in Gombe arrested sixteen suspects after a Muslim mob stoned, stripped, beat, and finally stabbed to death a Christian teacher, Christiana Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin, after she caught a student cheating on an exam in March. Her body was then burned beyond recognition by the mob who falsely accused her of desecrating a Quran. The suspects were released last month without any charges being filed, prompting Christian leaders to accuse government authorities of a cover-up and raising concerns about additional attacks. (Christian Today)
Eritrea: Just a few weeks ago, the Islamic government installed a new Orthodox Patriarch after they removed the previous Patriarch and placed him under house arrest for no stated reason. Compass News Direct reported in February the death of Magos Solomon Semere, a Christian who had been imprisoned in a military jail for four and a half years for illegal Christian worship, the third Christian to die in government custody since October. Authorities have also cracked down on unapproved churches, jailing at least two thousand Protestants and members of the Medhane Alem Orthodox renewal movement since the beginning of the year and publicly burning confiscated Bibles. (Christian Post; Compass News Direct ; Journal Chretien)
It is not an exaggeration to say that I could extend this brief list ad infinitum with additional Islamic countries and news items from just the past few weeks’ worth of incidents of violence, discrimination, intimidation and murder targeting Christians in the Muslim world. In many instances, the government and religious authorities in these Muslim countries work hand-in-hand in their campaign of religious persecution.
A scene in the Academy Award-winning movie Schindler’s List gives us some insight into what is happening all across the Muslim world with respect to Christianity. As the SS Commandant Amon Göth and his Nazi Stormtroopers prepare to liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Krakow, Poland, Göth (played in the movie by Ralph Fiennes) gives his men a peptalk:
For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. Think about that. By this evening, those six centuries are a rumor. They never happened. Today is history.
This scene is being repeated in the Friday sermons in mosques and on Islamic satellite TV all over the world, only this time it is the Christians in addition to the Jews who are targets. Great efforts are being made to make the two-thousand year history of Christianity in North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia a blasphemous rumor. Soon students in Turkey will be taught that the Hagia Sophia, the greatest architectural structure in the Muslim world, wasn’t built by the Christian Emperor Justinian in the Sixth Century, but by the Sultan Mehmed II a thousand years later after the Ottomans seized the Byzantine capital. That Christians lived at all in the Muslim world, let alone that much of the territory occupied by Muslims used to be Christian lands before the Islamic Wars of Conquest, will be nothing but a rumor by the end of this century punishable according to the precepts of shari’a.
President Bush announced last week that he will be sending a special envoy to the 57-member Organization of Islamic Countries. Hopefully, the systematic persecution of Christians and other religious minorities will be the first and primary item in the new envoy’s portfolio, with the 2007 annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the State Department’s Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, which name virtually every single country in the OIC for its human rights abuses and religious cleansing, as evidence for our country’s concern.
The fact remains that not a single Christian or Jew lives in peace in the Muslim world, and if it is truly our nation’s foreign policy to spread democracy around the world, this issue is the perfect topic for us to press. Back at home, raising Islam’s global war on Christianity should be the immediate response to the seemingly endless media grievance machine of radical Islam’s Western apologists. Until they begin to address the new Holocaust perpetrated in the name of Islam, their complaints and denials are nothing but bald hypocrisy.
Patrick Poole is an occasional contributor to American Thinker. He maintains a blog, Existential Space.
We encourage all Anti-Jihadist sites, and individuals to promote this resolution. Its success will be another step forward in our war on Islamic terror.
The U.S. Congress and the Leadership council for Human Rights condemn Mubarak, the godfather of Egypt that parades himself as the champion, for the Palestinian rights and war on terror while denying 15 million Copts of their basic rights, and expose him for what he really is. [A true muslim. This is the best qualification we should use, that should say it all, to address these creatures.]
The beauty is, they will understand what we mean by that when you slap them with it in the face, don’t forget the smile, but they won’t be able to accuse you of anything.
Actually I’m looking forward for the day when muslims and Islamic organizations like CAIR and company start suing us for calling them, true muslim followers of mohammad, knowing how much they’re proud of that infamous name that many of them carry. To give them a double dose of, “Feel the pride.”
When it gets to their bones, and we reach the point of being accused as islamophobic and spreading hate speech, for calling them true muslim followers of mohammad, that will be the day when they’ll bring down the house of islam with their own hands on their heads. And that will be the day when you’ll see scores of muslims wearing crosses and stars of David and calling themselves Mike and Emily instead of mohammad and eisha.
I particularly advise the radio shows, and television talk show hosts exposing islam to use this strategy. Can you imagine a headline like, “CAIR officials sue Michael Savage for calling them, true muslim followers of mohammad?”
We debate muslims every day, and we know the effect. Many muslims became ex-muslims when it made them regain conscience and forced them to connect with the deeds of mohammad and islam.
It is also a double formula. For muslims claiming to be against terrorism, against beating women, against killing kafirs and apostate, calling for peaceful co-existence between all people, equal rights for women and minorities, against the “marriage” of baby girls, against anti Semitism and defaming other religions, etc, etc, we congratulate them for not being true muslims and having a much higher morality than mohammad. But we ask them from where they got all this beautiful teaching, since it’s not in the Koran, and contradicts mohammad’s deeds, unless they can give us the references to correct our lack of knowledge.
Besides, telling a muslim that he’s a true muslim follower of mohammad is perfectly, “Politically correct.” But it will give political correctness a new dimension that will serve our purpose.
LCHR Applauds Egypt Human Rights Resolution, Urges Support
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Written by LCHR |
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Wednesday, 27 June 2008 |
Washington, D.C. – The Leadership Council for Human Rights strongly supports H. Res. 1303, calling on the Egyptian Government to respect human rights and freedoms of religion and expression in Egypt. LCHR expresses its appreciation to Congressional Human Rights Caucus Co-Chair Frank Wolf for introducing this important resolution, which details Egypt's human rights abuses against religious minorities, journalists and bloggers, democracy proponents, and civil society development organizations. The resolution also urges the President and the Secretary of State to prioritize human rights and religious freedom in meetings with Egyptian officials.
LCHR applauds Rep. Wolf for his consistent leadership on the human rights situation in Egypt. Tragically, many Egyptians have been unable to claim and enjoy their rights because of widespread repression. Religious minorities like the Copts and Baha'is are subject to discrimination at every level, and political opponents of the ruling regime, including Ayman Nour, have been targeted and jailed. Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, has promised democratic reforms time and again. These promises have gone unfulfilled.
Please call and encourage your Member of Congress to co-sponsor H. Res. 1303. Your support is vital for the success of the resolution, which if passed will send President Mubarak a clear message that Egypt must respect human rights. Current co-sponsors include Reps. Burton, Smith, Franks, Fossella, Kirk, McCotter, Schakowsky, Souder, Davis, Pitts, Waters, Pence, McGovern, and Goode.
Proposed letter
Date:
The Honorable XXXXX
(Address)
RE: Request to Co-Sponsor Resolution H.Res.1303
Dear Congressman XXXXX,
I/ We, as members of your district, are writing this letter to kindly ask for your assistance in supporting the aforementioned resolution that admonishes the Egyptian government’s egregious violations of human rights and religious freedoms. This resolution also requests that Egypt ends all forms of harassment and fully implement protection of religious minorities.
We, as Coptic Christians and Americans of Egyptian descent, are extremely concerned with the plight of all Christians in the Middle East, and especially with our Coptic brothers and sisters in Egypt. The Copts of Egypt are the last sizable Christian population left in the Middle East, and are also Egypt’s largest religious minority group.
Egypt’s violations of human rights and religious freedoms have been on the Congressional agenda for some time. However, violations of human rights in Egypt have continued to worsen significantly; and this severe decline and lack of improvement by the Egyptian government prompted:
1. Two European Union Parliament resolutions (one on Nov. 15th, 2007 and one on Jan. 18th, 2008) that condemn Egypt’s violations of human rights and religious freedoms
2. This new proposed US resolution, which will prove to the world that the Americans will always defend democracy and human rights throughout the world; showing our support for helping those who are helpless.
We are writing to respectfully request that you join in co-sponsoring this resolution. Your knowledge and expertise would be a great addition to this resolution.
The lead sponsor of this resolution is Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia. On Friday April 18th, Mr. Wolf’s office sent out a “Dear Colleague” email asking for support of this resolution and it includes the contact information for Elizabeth Hoffman in Congressman Wolf’s office.
We sincerely thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
No one on earth knows Islam and muslims better than the Copts. Will the West get the message and wake up?
All the reports we posted about muslims' terror attacks, and the persecution of Arab governments of the native Christian minorities, were not aimed to plead with Western governments for the sake of the Copts or the Christians of the Middle East, these governments can't even control the muslim populations in their own countries, but to expose to the Western public the amount of hate, rage, and viciousness ordinary muslim "moderates," are capable of, which is limitless, for the cause of allah. All this hate and viciousness exist already in the West with well organized, well financed cells, more motivated, more creative, more indoctrinated, more recruiting and in much more better position than prior to 911. They even hold their own motivational gatherings, seminars, and became bolder and more immune than ever before.
Did Western populations became the hostage of islam or collateral damage for the special interests and the Arab lobby?
We made sure at all times that every US administration, the Congress, and all Western governments were fully informed and documented by all Coptic organizations, human rights organizations, and their Embassies of the quasi official ethnic cleansing going on against all native Middle Eastern Christians. But in their equation, their special interests with the muslim world and particularly the oil lobby, made their defense for universal human rights, and freedom of religion principles, just empty words, even disregarding an all out islamic radicalization, in Egypt and across the muslim world that ultimately feeds islamic terrorism in the West.
In the midst of continuing sectarian tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt [Read: continuing muslims attacks] the Coptic Diaspora has recently called for demonstrations in the U.S. and European cities. [There will be demonstrations also in Canada and Australia.]
Hundreds of Coptic migrants took to the streets in the Netherlands, France and the U.S., raising banners reading "Save Christians in Egypt," "Stop Islamic Terrorism" and "Help! Christians of Egypt are under attack."
The protests follow an eruption of violence between Muslims and Copts [Read: eruption of muslims violent attacks against the peaceful Copts] in several parts of Egypt. Last month a land dispute involving a Coptic monastery left one Muslim man killed [This muslim never set foot in the monastery, and neither his body, nor any autopsy report were ever produced] in the southern province of Menya. Four Copts, including two monks, were injured. The clash [Again, read: the muslim terrorists thugs attack. The monks never clashed with the thug’s attackers] arose after the monastery began building a wall around neighboring farming land, saying it belonged to the church. Days earlier in Cairo, four Copts were shot dead in a jewelry shop by two gunmen who fled without stealing anything. [Egypt is a police state, if the four slaughtered were muslims, the police would've got the perpetrators in less than 24 hours.]
Egypt is predominantly Sunni Muslim; the Coptic minority is believed to constitute almost 10% of a population of 78 million. [Copts in Egypt numbers no less than 18% (14-15 millions), by the Coptic Church estimate. Since the military coup d’état (military putsch), in 1952, all consecutive governments refused to do any census, to marginalize the Copts who are represented by 0.88% in the Egyptian parliament, one government Minister, and 0% in everything else including the media, sport teams, and even in show business.] An estimated 2 million Copts live in the Diaspora.
[Read: 2 million that were forced to leave. Dr. Magdy Yacoub, the most prominent and world renowned heart surgeon in the world, based in London, Britain, and knighted by the Queen, was told bluntly, after graduating, 1st of his class from medical school in Egypt: "don't expect to have a future in the university as a teacher, there is no room for a Christian donkey here, we don't want you here." This is the, "Academic," language the distinguished medical school professors used, if that tells you something.
The same thing could be said about a great number of the most prominent Coptic doctors in the Cleveland Clinic and all over the Western world, just to name two examples. Dr., Professor, Sir Magdi Yacoub, and the prominent Coptic doctors of the Cleveland Clinic paid back those muslim Egyptians that called them Coptic donkeys and threw them out, in a very special way.
For more than 25 years, Dr.Yacoub takes his whole medical team; twice a year to Egypt, giving up his holidays, to give life by providing free heart surgery for poor children that otherwise would have no chance of surviving. That's beside the lectures he gives, to the top Egyptian medical professors. He established and developed heart surgery departments in several medical schools, lobbied international organizations and Western governments to provide all the medical equipments necessary for these departments, provided scholarships and internships to a score of Egyptian doctors to train under his guidance in Britain, all for free.
Anwar Sadat, one of the biggest oppressors of the Copts during his presidency, and responsible for two infamous Copt massacres, declared publicly in the Egyptian parliament, "I am a muslim president of a muslim country, ” when he was shot, immediately his wife called the Egyptian Embassy in London to prepare a private plane to transport Dr. Yacoub in emergency to Cairo. But the God of the Copts was faster in treating him and took him to where mohammad, his buddy, was, before Dr. Yacoub boarded the plane.
Imagine for a second, if president Bush declared solemnly and publicly in a speech televised nationally from the US Congress, "I am a Christian president for a Christian country." What you think would happen? I'll leave that to you.
Dr. Yacoub, "The Coptic donkey," is more famous in Egypt than the president, Hosni Mubarak. He is regarded as a virtual deity, revered, almost God-like.
The same story, from beginning to end, could be told about Dr. Fawzy G. Estafanous, chairman, Division of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. He is another world renowned, "Coptic Donkey," that his contribution to the Cleveland Clinic, for the last forty years, made it what it is today. To be treated by him, all the kings and presidents (the gang) of the Arab world, made the Clinic their medical Mecca, and trust their lives into the hands of Dr. Estafanous rather than their allah and mohammad's recipe of camel urine.
He also paid back those muslim Egyptians that forced him out, by denying him an assistant professor position, in the same manner as Dr.Yacoub. He was instrumental in advancing medical studies all over the Arab world, establishing advanced research center, giving the opportunity to scores of Egyptian and arab doctors to be trained in the Clinic under his, and other Copt doctors, guidance. Treated scores of poor Egyptians with his team, all free.
The contribution of the Copts to Egypt was not limited to the medical field with these two examples from many others.
Dr.Adel Sedra was refused a teacher assistant position at the faculty of engineering, Cairo University to pursue graduate studies for being another, 'Coptic donkey." He too paid back, by opening the door, and providing scholarships to scores of Egyptian muslim engineers in the most prestigious world class engineering faculties of Toronto and Waterloo Universities for which he's the Dean, and helped establish the most advanced technology research centers in many Egyptian universities.
Hundreds of stories could be told, but we'll stop here and ask a question: did all this changed the hearts and minds of Egyptian muslims towards the Copts? to answer this I'll ask you another question that will help you get the answer. Did the opportunities and the open arms hospitality extended by Britain changed the minds and hearts of the suicide "Doctor," bombers? Did it changed the hearts and minds of Abu Hamza el Masri, Abu Qatada, and scores of other muslims when Britain granted them asylum to save them from hanging at the end of a rope in their own countries, and provided them, and their extended families, security, housing, and a comfortable life, all compliment from the British tax payer? did it changed the hearts and minds of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh and mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing when America let him in to save him from the hands of the Egyptian government, or El Amoudi, or Sami El Erian that was given generously the opportunity to live the American dream?
There is another measurement we can use to gauge the muslims equation. On who's hearts and minds, Western countries spent and will keep spending (from your pocket) trillions of dollars to try, with no guarantee, to keep you safe? Who's "hearts and minds," are draining all the resources of all the Intelligence agencies of the Western world, that has to monitor those hearts and minds, especially their worship places, round the clock?
Add to this the hundreds of millions of dollars Western governments dump (also from your pocket) on what they call (please don't laugh) the battle of hearts and minds.
A muslim that takes mohammad as a role model, and call him, "The most honorable of all prophets," can't have neither hearts nor minds. This is not an opinion; this is the doctrine of islam. Once a muslim discover the existence of a heart and mind, he is not a muslim any more, and islam would consider him a heretic deserving death for committing the unforgivable sin for not using the heart and mind of mohammad, the most famous mass murderer in history (it's all by the admission of their sources, nothing from me), and they're proud about it. That's the only heart and mind any muslim is allowed to use.
Do you know of any major world religion that has its places of worship, its spiritual leaders, and its "devout" followers under constant surveillance in every Western country, other than the, "Religion of peace?"
When President Bush and other Western officials give us the, "Islam religion of peace," salvo, they should finish the sentence, "Islam is a religion of peace, under constant surveillance." That explains why they never laughed when saying it, it kept me wondering for a while. Thank God for never saying that Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Confuciunism, and ... are religions of peace. They would've been sued, by the followers of these religions, for hate speech and slandering.
It's worth noting that the professors of the medical and engineering faculties that benefitted, and still benefitting greatly from the Copts mentioned above, are known to be the most hateful against Coptic students, and the most fundamentalists. It's not a coincidence that Zawahri is a doctor, and Ben Laden is an engineer.]Since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came to power in 1981, the Coptic Church has sought to project an image of religious co-existence and has not turned to inflammatory discourse on sectarian violence. Yet the response to the recent bloodshed suggests that the church is about to change its style. This month the Coptic Holy Senate issued a relatively strongly worded statement calling on Mubarak to put an end to armed attacks against Copts and ensure their safety.
[We never got any reply from Mubarak, nor he ever uttered a word about the safety concern of 15 million, supposedly, Egyptian citizens. But he doesn't stop parading himself like a super model all over the Middle East and Europe (he hasn't been invited in the US since 2004, Bush can't stand him no more.), as the defender of the Palestinian rights, but he sees no problem for the Copts with no rights. As a side note, him and his family stole about 40 billion in the last 27 years, while his people stand in line and kill themselves for a loaf of bread. These are the thugs they call presidents and kings, defenders of the great religion of truth, so what you expect out of their people.]
The church, which refrains from publicly criticizing the regime, has often distanced itself from the demands made by its followers overseas. This week violence broke out between Copts and Muslims over a rumor of the kidnapping of a Muslim woman and her son in Fayoum province, about 80 miles south of Cairo. One Muslim reportedly died of a heart attack and four Copts were injured in the clashes.
The tension comes at a crucial moment for the Coptic Orthodox Church as the frail Pope Shenouda III is away for medical treatment in the U.S. at the Cleveland Clinic.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Copts demonstrating in the Netherlands. Credit: the Coptic website Coptreal
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