When Hossām Bahjat, Executive Director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, introduced his organization’s Two Years of Sectarian Violence report, he was quick to emphasize that this report was not merely a summary of the sectarian incidents which had taken place over the last two years. This was, he stated, an attempt to distinguish trends in sectarian violence and to make recommendations as to how the government should deal with the problem: A situation which he described as “grave, dangerous and almost uncontrollable.”
Several articles in this week’s edition of AWR focus on this new report, released by EIPR at a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in Garden City. [See articles: 10, 11, 12, 13] At the press conference, Hossām Bahjat was joined by ‘Ādil Ramadān, the lead researcher for the report. Together, they summarized the report hitting on key figures presented: 53 incidents of sectarian violence in 17 of Egypt’s 29 governorates. All except one incident took place between Muslims and Christians. The bulk of the incidents took place in Upper Egypt, particularly in Minya.
After citing their alarming statistics, Bahjat and Ramadān went on to note trends in sectarian violence, pointing to the different causes of clashes, from collective punishment against Christians, to religious rituals, houses of worship and economic targeting. This section of the press conference was brief, the authors referred the audience to the report itself for further details: they clearly, and understandably, wanted to use their moment in the spotlight for other purposes.
For EIPR, this was their chance to talk to the national and international media about their recommendations for the government, and Bahjat and Ramadan clearly relished the opportunity. Moving from case to case they harshly criticized the way the government has thus far dealt with sectarian incidents – even going so far as to accuse the Ministry of the Interior of using “illegal measures” in the aftermath of sectarian incidents for making “random arrests” in order to pressure families into accepting reconciliation. Here they pointed to the case of two Muslims and two Christians arrested following violence in Abū Fāna who were held for over a year by security services in spite of a court-issued release order.
After the criticism, the speakers moved logically on to EIPR’s recommendations: no new laws are needed to prevent sectarian violence, only the implementation of current laws. Sectarian incidents, they argued, must be investigated even-handedly if, as Ramadān repeatedly stated, a “rupture” were to be avoided.
The full report - Two Years of Sectarian Violence: What happened? Where do we begin? An Analytical Study of Jan 2008 -Jan 2010 - is available online here, and for anyone interested in the subject it is well worth a read. One thing that struck me both on reading the report and on attending the press conference, however, is that in all the incidents and their aftermaths, Christians are very clearly portrayed as the victims and largely absolved of any blame. While Christians may not be responsible for the initial actions which spark many sectarian incidents, to absolve them of all blame in the perpetuation of tensions and violence seems rash. In fairness, the EIPR report is not about apportioning blame, or about criticizing either the Muslim or Christian communities, but rather about providing well-grounded recommendations to the government about how it act to prevent the next coming years from witnessing the same levels of sectarian violence as the last two years.
