Lex Runderkamp wrote on December 7th:
“The church of Mar-Girgis in Merinab, which has housed religious services for some 80 years, was demolished by a group of Muslim extremists who claimed the church was unlicensed. In what amounts to complicity on the part of the Aswan governor and the local security officials, the rule of law was not upheld. Nothing was done to implement the law by deterring or penalising the offenders, culprits, or instigators. Instead, the security officials held ‘reconciliation meetings’ between the victims and offenders, during which the victims had to relinquish their rights and the aggressors were allowed to get away with their crime, no questions asked.”
Runderkamp refers to http://www.arabwestreport.info/year-2011/week-45/33-maspero-massacre-exe.... But this was an editorial by Watanī. It is not what AWR was saying, it’s is just an article in the AWR media database.
Fact according to the report (of Lamīs Yahyá) [Please read report here]:
“The church of Mar-Girgis in Merinab, which has housed religious services for some 80 years, was demolished…”
I now translate from the Dutch of Runderkamp:
The facts (presented in the Watanī text) are incorrect. The house where religious services have been held for 80 years has not been attacked, was not set on fire. It is still in the village, unharmed. In the village there are two locations that are confused. The prayer house is a low building of around 60-70 meters distance from the church under construction. No Muslim has attacked the recognized prayer room of the Copts.
[CH: Very strange: he just picks an arbitrary article from the AWR database and starts criticising it. Apparently he still did not read the 29 page report by Lamīs Yahyá.]
The traditional prayer house, where 80 years religious services have been held thus far, was on the verge of collapse. The authorities gave a permit to build something new on the same spot, on condition that the Copts would agree to the given restrictions: no domes and no crosses. But the Copts started to build their church on a different location. When resistance developed against the building (of the church) at the end of August Copts tried to get a permit accepted for a church in a different village (Khur Al-Zaq) [and used that for] a new location in al-Mārīnāb. But that building was registered as a “house”. That is why Muslims continuously prove with documents that it concerns a “house” and not a “church.” Thus all inhabitants show papers that are supposed to show they are right but the truth is in the middle: there is a permit for rebuilding, but not on the spot where the house has been placed. All critiques on my reporting error when they say that there was a church on the spot where they were building.
“…demolished by a group of Muslim extremists.”
Did Muslims set fire as all believe this happened? Six judges from Cairo researched the facts in al-Mārīnāb in October (committee 'Umar Marawān). The committee concluded that it cannot be proved that Muslim inhabitants set the fire in the village. First, according to the committee, because in the church there are hardly any traces of fire! That sounds strange, but see my video recording and you will see that in the church there are only clean walls, pillars, and floors.
The greatest fire was beside the church in a shop and an office of traveling priest Makarius. On the video the Copts made themselves, you clearly see two sources of fire, in the church, but there was absolutely no conflagration. Secondly, the six judges concluded that the Copts have no supporting evidence for the claim that Muslims set the fire. The commission met with a (Muslim) witness who claimed that he had seen a Copt setting fire in a tire in the building beside the church. The Muslim even went to help to extinguish the fire. Kees Hulsman, head of Arab-West Report, who was in al-Mārīnāb shortly after the fire, recognizes that Muslims immediately claimed that Copts had set fire themselves. I do not want to accuse the Copts, but the confusion and doubt that the six judges had about the source of the fire never made it to international media.
“Nothing was done to implement the law by deterring or penalising the offenders, culprits, or instigators. Instead, the security officials held ‘reconciliation meetings’ between the victims and offenders, during which the victims had to relinquish their rights and the aggressors were allowed to get away with their crime, no questions asked.”
It is true that reconciliation meetings were held because it was insufficiently clear who was responsible. The accusations went back and forth. No one filed an official complaint, also not Copts, says the layer of the Muslim inhabitants.
Checked:
The facts above have been checked again in the past days. Anyone who places this story beside the presentations of Jan Dirk Snel and Kees Hulsman has to recognize that the image given of the fire in the first few days misinformed the international community. That is the argument I wanted to make in my report. I am not in favor of Muslims or against Copts. I am a journalist who investigates issues, regardless of the sympathy of the majority. So, this was Runderkamp’s response
My response:
I am leaving in only a few hours for Upper Egypt where I have practically no access to internet. This visit of several days to Upper Egypt had been planned a while ago and has nothing to do with al-Mārīnāb or Runderkamp, and I am not willing to cancel or delay my visit because of the discussion taking place now in The Netherlands.
A few points in brief:
1) In any conflict there are conflicting stories. Runderkamp is right that this also applies to the issue of who burned the church under construction. I am aware that there are discussions about different locations, but this is not the issue. The issue is that there are obstacles for Christians to obtain permits for church building. As a consequence, Christians indeed often try to get around those impediments by building without permit and/or messing around with documents. We have reported often enough about this in Arab-West Report. Christians at times have not liked that and this is not my problem in the search for the truth about what is happening. I agree with Lex Runderkamp that investigation must be done without sympathy (or the opposite) for any party involved.
2) The larger issue on September 30th was that a large group of Muslim youth went to the church under construction with the purpose to knock it down. This has not been denied by anyone, but Runderkamp does not report this. If it is indeed true that Christians did not have correct legal documents, would it then not be civil to go to court?
3) There is no proof of who set the fire. It could be either Muslims (as Christians stated and a security officer indicated) or Christians. I don’t know and I don’t claim to know. But having as “proof” one Muslim witness in a society that was already divided between the two religious groups over this issue is “proof” of a very partisan witness and thus for me this is no proof.
4) Lex Runderkamp focuses on the arguments of ‘Abd Allah who is certainly able to present his view well and this is his right. But ‘Abd Allah presents a quote from Father Salīb and Runderkamp does not take the effort to hear the priest who was close-by in the neighboring town of Idfū.
5) Lex Runderkamp refers to my apology since I indeed first responded that I had heard no one on October 1st making the accusation that Christians had burned the church. When I responded, I was doing so under time constraints and I thus had not reread the report of Lamīs Yahyá. Still, this is not that relevant. What is important is that it is also clear from the detailed reporting of Lamīs Yahyá that the accusation about church burning was not a major element in the talks we had on October 1st. The villagers, including ‘Abd Allah, then focused on the legal arguments—whether papers were correct or not, and the statement of Father Salīb, that Runderkamp presented. But on October 1st, the issue of who caused the fire was not a major issue in the discussions.
6) All kinds of side issues come up. Was the church location 80 years old as Runderkamp quotes from Lamīs Yahyá’s report? He took a quote from a Christian in the village who claimed this. Lamīs Yahyá’s report gives a full presentation of arguments used by all sites on October 1st. The location that Lamīs Yahyá refers to below was built in 1985, but this is not a major issue. In stories such as this, people do indeed provide conflicting information, yet the focus should not be on this, but on the main issue: difficulties in church building, Copts seeking ways to circumvent this, and a group of Muslims taking the law into their own hands by deciding to demolish a building, which in their opinion, was violating Egyptian law.
“Bring this to court!” I would tell them. Let them decide!
Why does Runderkamp simply not want to admit that it was Muslim youth who first attacked the church under construction?
It is very serious that the NOS film is now front-page news on a newspaper that is linked to the Jama’āt al-Islāmīyah, who are using the NOS film for the claim that Christians set fire to their own church and that they framed Muslims. In the tension-stricken country of Egypt, no Egyptian needs foreign media to put more oil on the fire.
Concerning the question about the two buildings, Lamīs Yahyá responded:
See my report of October 12th. The translation of the video of the lecture given by Father Salīb and Shaykh Habīb in Kum Umbū (December 2010) clarifies that the 1985 building was not attacked and the church under construction was the one that was attacked. When I first heard about it, I was confused. I wrote in my report ‘So now, I am confused as to which one was the church and which building was the meetinghouse since Yūsuf Mu’awad had two houses.’ General Badrān told me to go and take photos of a guesthouse where there were no signs of it having been used as a church. Perhaps the altar was already removed? It was not dilapidated. Did the Copts forged the location in the paper they presented? Perhaps but the location where the church was supposed to have been was not clear on October 1. The governor is not the one who put the condition on local Copts not to build domes or crosses—it was Muslims checking the claims from the Christian side in the meeting at Kum Umbū. (See pp 20-21 of my report.)
Runderkamp stated in the Dutch TV news reporting that there never was a church in al-Mārīnāb. First of all there was a location that was used as a church. Thus Runderkamp’s allegation that there was no church was not true. Now he admits that the copts in al-Mārīnāb had a prayer house and he calls it a church.
Concerning the earlier question asked by Mr. Jan Dirk Snel on the prayer time on September 30th:
The Friday prayer started that day at around 11:48 or 12:00 and the sermon (khutba) finished around 1:30 pm. Then people start to leave the mosques in the village. All testimonies confirm that Muslim youth attacked the church under construction after prayer. This does not match with the finding of Runderkamp that the Coptic videos were dated 12.17 pm and 12.26 pm.
http://weblogs.nos.nl/buitenlandredactie/files/2011/12/Metadata-videomat... http://weblogs.nos.nl/buitenlandredactie/2011/12/03/1567/ http://weblogs.nos.nl/buitenlandredactie/files/2011/12/Metadata-videomat...
What do these differences mean?
For Runderkamp: evidence that Copts initiated the fire during Friday prayer.
For me: insufficient proof for his claim. I have noticed more often in my years in Egypt that timings were not always accurate. If this is Runderkamp’s only indication then it is very weak since it does not match the testimonies.
On December 7th members of Parliament, Pieter Omtzigt (CDA) and Joel Voordewind(CU) asked the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs the following questions in Parliament:
1. What do you think of the article “Copts set Mārīnāb on fire and blame Muslims” on the front page of “Al-Misrīyīn” related to the radical Jamā'āt al-Islāmīyah or the Islamic groups?
2. What is your view of the fact that NOS and its journalist are used as the sole and authoritative source in this article about setting a Coptic building on fire?
3. How do you estimate the fact that there are other articles (e.g.: Trigger for Copts' anger: El-Marinab Church as a model and Burning the Dome: AWR Investigates Sectarian Violence in Edfu) in which the fire in the Coptic building is blamed on a group of young Muslims?
4. What do you think of the fact that a program of the independent Dutch news is now used in Egypt by extremists for their own ends?
5. Do you agree that the news report in the NOS journal from 27 November is more certain [about Copts setting their church to fire] than what can be proven with the facts, and that this had led to a needless increase of tensions in Egypt?
6. Can you give Parliament the research that has been done and that will be done in Egypt in regard to the fire in Mārīnāb?
7. Do you agree with the CDA and CU parties that the NOS news programs should rectify its reporting if their reporting on the fire in Mārīnāb is proven to be wrong?
