One killed in Coptic Christian-Muslim clash in Cairo

By Palash Ghosh | March 08 2011 6:13 PM

Amidst the growing pains of a revolution that will hopefully one lead to democracy, a scar from the past reared its ugly head in Egypt when a clash between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Cairo led to the death of one Copt.

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The dead person was identified as Mina Fares Hanna and the killing occurred in the poor working-class district of Moqattam. Reportedly, a fight erupted when dozens of Muslims showed up in Moqattam, which was inhabited by Copts who work as garbage collectors and who had blocked a main north-south highway in the capital.

Both sides of the conflict threw rocks at each other and witnesses said soldiers fired shots into the air to disperse the crowds. Few other details were available.

Elsewhere in Cairo, at least 1,000 Copts protested the burning of one of the churches last week. They demanded the church be rebuilt and those responsible for the arson be brought to justice.

The Shahedain [Two Martyrs] church, which was located in the Helwan provincial city of Sol, was set ablaze on Friday after clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left two people dead. That conflict was reportedly over a doomed romance between a Christian man and a Muslim woman in Sol.

Problems escalated in the village when a group of Muslims headed to the burned out church and conducted a mass Islamic prayer there, a Christian resident of Sol told Egyptian state television.

Fighting and hostility between Muslims and the Coptic minority appear to be intensifying.

In January of this year, Mohamed Ahmed Hussein was sentenced to death after being convicted of the pre-meditated murders of killing six Coptic Christians and a Muslim policeman. Hussein shot the group outside a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas in Naga Hamady, southern Egypt. The attack was reportedly a form a revenge for the alleged rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man.

Two weeks prior to that mass murder, a suicide bomber killed 23 people at a Coptic church in Alexandria.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Coptic Christians, who represent about 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million strong population, have long complained about systematic discrimination and being the target of sectarian violence.