A full five continuing weeks asserted what jeopardizes citizenship and social peace. Six sectarian tensions concerning
the Copts’ right to practice their religious rituals in which they were attacked by Muslim neighbors happened during
this period. This is a recurrent scenario in Egypt perpetuated in the absence of the state authority, in which a group
of both sides are detained and then set free after attending compulsory customary conciliatory sessions held by the
authorities. The loser is usually the Coptic side who loses his right and his church is closed for undetermined period,
harboring bad feelings for the other side, thus the congestion is augmented.
A group of experts, thinkers and
legal experts highlighted the gravity of the Egyptian situation, spelled out the causes of sectarian violence and the
future of the unified law for building places of worship and how to exit the sectarian dilemma and bolster equality,
Freedom of thought and the practice of religious rituals.
Head of Cairo centre for studies, Bahy al-Dīn Hasan
emphasized that the state has no effective policy to deal with these tensions, causing the simple Muslim to treat the
Copt as a second class citizen. Cairo newspaper editor-in-chief, Salāh ‘Īá criticized the
compulsory customary conciliatory sessions. The strategic expert at The Aham Center for Political and Strategic Studies,
Dr ‘Imād Jād underlined the danger of the Islamic discourse that insinuate Muslims against Christians
and criticized the system’s procrastination to extenuate the sectarian flaring-up. The Coptic businessman in Minia
confirmed that the tensions are due to poverty and ignorance. The attorney, Ihāb Ramzī underscored the
significance of prosecuting the culprits. The journalist Dr William Wīsā assured that the Islamic clergymen’s
instigation, media and security collusion, and the absence of justice led to this congestion. Remarkably, most of the
above mentioned proposed the immediacy of issuing the unified law for building places of worship as a deterring solution
for sectarian strife.
In the light of the procrastination of the people’s assembly passing the law for five
parliamentary terms without ratifying it, Member of the National Council for Human Rights, consultant Fahmī
Nāshid came up with a declaration that the republic president has the right to employ the provision of act 147 of
the Constitution to issue the unified law without recourse to the People’s Assembly. Therefore all honest eyes are set
on the president to save the social peace from the claws of sectarian congestion.
العربية