Attacks on Egyptian Coptic Christians

Egyptian military forces have killed 19 militants suspected of perpetrating a deadly attack on Coptic Christians, according to the Egyptian interior ministry, reports Al Jazeera. The attack, which the Islamic State (ISIS) has since claimed credit for, left seven dead and 18 wounded after gunmen opened fire on three buses filled with worshipers returning from the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in central Egypt’s Minya province, where they had attended a baptism.

This is not the first time the nation’s Coptic minority has been targeted. The latest attack mirrors another incident just a year ago in which 30 Copts were killed and about 25 injured after masked gunmen ambushed a bus heading to the very same monastery. In December 2017, gunmen killed 11 at a Christian-owned shop in Cairo. In total, over 100 people have been killed in similar incidents since 2011.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is the main Christian denomination in Egypt and makes up a significant minority, constituting as much as 10 percent of the country’s population of 95 million. The Copts date the establishment of the Coptic Church in Alexandria as far back as the 1st century CE, which would make it one of the first Christian churches outside of the Holy Land. This Christian sect is distinct from the other denominations of Christianity. It broke away after a dispute over the nature of Christ at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE.

The Egyptian state moved quickly to condemn the November 2 attack. General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek launched an investigation into the attack, and monetary compensation packages of up to 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($5,600) were offered to the wounded and to the families of those killed. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi took the opportunity to issue a statement on his personal Facebook page, mourning the dead as “martyrs” and condemning the perpetrators as “treacherous hands which aim to undermine the solid fabric of the nation.”

Although el-Sisi reaffirmed his commitment to combating such “dark terrorism,” some Copts remain critical of government efforts to safeguard their community. Copts live alongside Muslim Arabs and identify as Egyptian—the name Copt itself derives from the Arabic qubt, meaning Egyptian—but they have faced continual discrimination in the majority-Muslim state. As non-Muslim citizens, Copts face ample legal barriers to participating in everyday life. De jure equality has translated into de facto exclusion from public office and educational institutions, and the construction of churches is prohibitively difficult.

Discrimination has only been exacerbated by the gradual transition from nationalism to Islamism as the source of identity in the region. The 1970s presidency of Anwar Sadat embraced Islamists as a counterpoint to the Leftist movement, and the 2011 post-Arab Spring election of the Muslim Brotherhood solidified Islam as the main source of political legitimacy, side-lining the Christian Copts. This situation has helped legitimize a cycle of targeted violence that Amnesty International warns is greeted with “prevailing impunity” across Egypt.

The latest attack by ISIS aims to widen this gulf between Egyptian Muslims and their Coptic neighbours and use the Christian minority as a convenient scapegoat to unite the population under its brand of extremist Islamism. The Egyptian chapter has even explicitly declared Copts to be its “favourite prey.” As hundreds of Coptic Christians gathered at a public funeral service on Saturday and Pope Francis publicly expressed his sorrow for those killed, local Copts remained mindful of the risk. Marien Abdel Malak, one Egyptian Copt who lost three sons in the attack warned, “if things stay like this … we definitely have no future.”