[Hulsman wrote an article about the shooting in Upper Egypt for the Reformatorisch Dagblad. The church editor changed it substantially and added material from other sources. Hulsman has, therefore, added some comments in the text. Hulsman also gave a radio interview on January 7 to the Dutch radio 1. Here too he pointed to the rape in November that unleashed so much anger]
CAIRO – The murder of six Coptic Orthodox Christians and one policeman at the hands of drive-by gunmen on Wednesday in the town of Naj‘ Hammādī, Upper Egypt, is the result of weak governance and a non-functional police apparatus.. [Hulsman: I did not write about a non-functional police force, but that the local police knew that the area was tense and that this could result in more violence, in particular because an Upper Egyptian saying says that one can change a day of joy into a day of mourning. Such words are used as a threat and should have indicated that an attack on Coptic Christmas, the day of joy, was possible].
That is the conclusion of sociologist Drs. Kees Hulsman, working for the news service Arab-West Report and director of the Center for Intercultural Dialogue and Translation (CIDT). CIDT encourages mutual contacts between Muslims, Christians and other religions, researches religious conflicts and places these in a social-cultural and economical context [Hulsman: this is the role of AWR, not CIDT which is a translation office]. The government and police have had failed to foresee that tensions in Upper Egypt could result in such an attack, Hulsman said. The governor in the province where Naj‘ Hammādī is located is of Christian origin, but according to him Hulsman he does not carry out a decisive policy [Hulsman: I did not state this. I stated that many Christians say this about him]. “After a short time the Christians of the region, in particular, started to complain. The Coptic Orthodox Patriarch Shenouda III of Alexandria has been quoted as saying that it "is better for Christians to be ruled by a Muslim who does something for them then by a Christian who does nothing.”
This latest violence against the Copts was provoked by the rape of a 12-year old Muslim girl by a 25-year old Christian young man in November. The police took the suspected young man under its protection, providing him with a hiding place. [Hulsman: I am not aware of this. I wrote that the young man was on the run. The editor must have used other sources]. Angry Muslims proceeded to attacked the police station where they thought the man was being held. Five day of rioting followed, during which Christians' homes and businesses were vandalized and set on fire.
According to Hulsman, security forces failed to take more protective measures: “Christians in this area blame the police for this, because Muslims had threatened more violence if the young man were not turned over.”
Hulsman argues that cultural and social factors create a breeding ground for the religious tensions in Upper-Egypt. “The culture is marked by honor and shame. A rape is a great shame for the community that has to be revenged. But the way in which this happens has now gone far beyond any borders.”
A colleague of Hulsman at Arab-West Report attributes the problems to an impoverished educational climate. “Values such as tolerance and respect for other people's opinions have been under pressure since the 1970s. The social climate that has developed makes such extreme outbursts of violence possible,” according to the spokesman [Hulsman: I wrote about the opinion of Dr. Amīn Makram ‘Ubayd, member of the board of advisors of AWR].
The murder of six Christians has caused huge shock in Egypt. “It is the largest attack on Christians since the murder on 21 Christians in al-Kushh ten years ago,” said Hulsman.
The number of Copts in Egypt is estimated to be 8 million, 10 percent of the largely Muslim population [Hulsman: I believe the number to be closer to 5 million, 6 percent of the population]. Muslims who convert to Christianity are put in a difficult position, as converts are sometimes threatened with death by extremist Muslims. The leadership of the Coptic Church provides converts with hardly any protection, out of fear of the regime [Hulsman: I have not at all mentioned these numbers and did not write about converts. It is nonsense that the church provides converts hardly any protection for fear of the regime. The problem is that general sentiments in society are opposed to conversions in any direction, Muslims are opposed to Muslims leaving Islam and Christians are opposed to Christians leaving Christianity. The church advocates in court for the possibility that repentant converts to Islam return to their faith of origin]. In Egypt there is frequent popular violence against Christians and according to a report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights there are, on average, four attacks against Copts every month.
References to earlier articles about the alleged rape:
AWR, 2009, week 48, art. 1
AWR, 2009, week 48, art. 13
AWR, 2009, week 48, art. 17
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