(AINA) -- Egyptian armed forces this week demolished fences surrounding ancient Coptic monasteries, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by armed Arabs, robbers and escaped prisoners, who have seized the opportunity of the state of diminished protection by the authorities in Egypt to carry out assaults and thefts.

(AINA) -- The Egyptian Emergency State Security Court in Qena acquitted today two of the three suspects in the Christmas Eve Massacre in Nag Hammadi in January, 2010, where six Coptics, between the ages of 16 to 23, were shot and killed by Muslims in a drive-by shooting. The Copts were killed as they filed out of Church after celebrating the Coptic Christmas Eve midnight mass in Nag Hammadi, 600km south of Cairo A Muslim bystander was also killed and nine Copts were seriously injured (AINA 1-7-2010).

(AINA) -- Unusually bad winter weather in Upper Egypt all last week focused attention once again on the controversial restrictions on church building. The rainy weather caused roofs of dilapidated churches -- which have been waiting for years to receive construction permits -- to collapse.

(AINA) -- Six Copts were shot by an off-duty policeman on a train between Assiut and Cairo on Tuesday. One Copt was killed and five remain in critical condition. The gunman, identified as Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher, was on his way to work in Beni Mazar police station when he boarded the train at approximately 17.00 hours in the town of Samalout in Egypt's Minya province, roughly 260 km south of Cairo. He shot the six Copts after chanting "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is Great) then attempted to flee but was apprehetnded by passengers.

(AINA) -- The car explosion that went off in front of Saints Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria killed 21 and injured 96 parishioners who were attending a New Year's Eve Mass. According to church officials and eyewitnesses, there are many more victims that are still unidentified and whose body parts were strewn all over the street outside the church. The body parts were covered with newspapers until they were brought inside the church after some Muslims started stepping on them and chanting Jihadi chants (video showing dead bodies and limbs covered with newspapers in the street).

(AINA) -- The high profile criminal trial of 21-year-old Christian Copt Girgis Baroumi, accused of sexually assaulting a Muslim girl, is viewed by the Coptic community as an example of how the Egyptian government, using all its organs, including the Attorney General, Interior Minister and Parliament Speaker, has conspired to use him as a scapegoat to justify deadly Muslim assaults on Christians.

(AINA) -- A recently published column in the state-run daily al-Ahram newspaper carried an unprecedented attack on Egypt's patriarch, Pope Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Church, and the Copts in general. The column entitled "2010 Copts," by Abdel-Nasser Salama, an obscure journalist, appeared on December 6; it accused Pope Shenouda of having instigated sectarian tension in Egypt ever since he became Pope in 1971, by introducing into the Egyptian society "terms such as sectarianism, sectarian strife, citizenship and the resort to foreign powers for support."

United Nations (AINA) -- Thousands of Egyptian American Copts, led by Coptic bishops and clergymen representing other Christian denominations, protested on December 14 in front of the United Nations in New York against the on-going opersecution of their Coptic brethren in Egypt (video of rally).

(AINA) -- During his weekly sermon on Wednesday November 8 at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, Coptic Pope Shenouda III said "Coptic Blood is not Cheap," referring to the Coptic young men killed after security forces opened fire on them on November 24. In response to a query from a Copt in the audience as to what was the church doing for the 157 Copts detained and charged in connection with the incident of St. Mary and St. Michel's Church in Talbiya, the Pope said "We are doing our best in this matter."

(AINA) -- In an effort to end any hope of the Coptic Christians using the Church of St. Mary and St. Michaels in Talbiya for prayer services, the Giza Governorate converted overnight a house facing the church into a mosque.

Cairo (AINA) -- Dozens of Copts and a number of Muslims protested on December 4th in front of the Supreme Court in Cairo to call attention to the use of deadly force by State Security against Coptic protesters, which occurred on November 24 in Talbiya, Giza. The clashes between Copts and security forces resulted in 4 Coptic deaths as well as 120 injuries (AINA 12-3-2010).

(AINA) -- In what is viewed as a precedent by right groups, Egyptian state security forces opened fire on November 24 on Christian Copts, killing four, wounding 78, detaining hundreds and charging 170 with grievous charges -- "enough to keep them behind bars for 10-15 years," says Coptic political analyst Magdy Khalil.

(AINA) -- Christian Copts worldwide were shocked and enraged at the use of live ammunition by Egyptian state security forces against unarmed Coptic protesters, causing the death of three Coptic young men. A four-year old child suffocated from tear gas thrown inside the chapel. Rights groups inside and outside of Egybpt have condemned the use of excessive violence by security forces and the use of live ammunition against Coptic demonstrators.

(AINA) -- Clashes broke out between Christian protesters and Egyptian security forces over the construction of St. Mary and St. Michael church in Talbiya, within the Omraniya neighborhood of Giza, resulting in the killing of two Copts, hundreds of injuries and the arrest of more than 200 Copts.

(AINA) -- A Standoff took place on November 22 between Copts and security forces, which stormed the Church of St. Mary and St. Michael, in Talbiya, Giza to stop the construction of the church. It was the second time in less than 10 days that security forces stormed the church premises to seal it off.

(AINA) -- Police authorities in the Egyptian village rampaged by a Muslim mob on November 15, torching some 22 Coptic houses, came to the conclusion that the fires came about haphazardly as an "act of fate." The Bishop of Nag Hammadi, Anba Kyrillos, rejected the police explanations of the cause of the fires, saying "An act of fate caused 22 houses to be torched? An act of fate also caused torching of shops, a storage house and a large number livestock not near each other?" He added that the two Coptic-owned fields and irrigation machinery were torched one day later, "so was this also an act of fate?"

(AINA) -- Coptic Christians in the Upper Egyptian village of el-Nowahed, Abu-Tesht, in Qena Province, were victims of an attack by a Muslim mob of nearly one thousand on Monday, November 15. The attack started at nearly 10:00 pm on Monday evening and lasted until the early hours of Tuesday morning.

(AINA) -- Thousands of Copts staged a sit-in inside and outside the Church of the St. Mary in Talbiya, in the Pyramids area, since the morning of November 11, to protest the storming of the church premises by dozens of security forces to stop construction work and demolish stairs and toilets inside the church, despite the church having obtained the necessary permits.

(AINA) -- A Coptic Christian woman in Egypt named Camelia Shehata has unwittingly become the focal point in the clash of Islam with Christianity. The Al-Qaeda group operating in Iraq, which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), stormed Our Lady of Deliverance Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad on Sunday, October 31, and killed 58 Christians before being killed and blowing themselves up. In the phone call they made to Iraqi authorities ISI members demanded the release of Camelia Shehata, among others, whom they believe has converted to Islam but is being held against her will in a monastery by the Coptic church of Egypt.

(AINA) -- The attack by Islamic terrorists on the congregation of the Assyrian Our Lady of Deliverance Catholic church in central Baghdad, on October 31, resulted in killing of 52 catholic Assyrians, including two priests, 5 policemen, and wounding 75. 5 terrorists died either by detonating their explosive belts or being killed by the Iraqi security. The Martyrs Brigade of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a Sunni militant umbrella group affiliated with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack.

(AINA) -- The majority of Coptic Christians and liberal Muslims in Egypt believe that Fundamentalist sheikhs and their mass media have played a vital role in the latest wave of incitement against the Coptic Church, orchestrated by Egyptian State Security.