Egypt's Shura Council (upper house of the parliament) members demanded on Monday sacking the interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, following clashes that erupted outside Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo.
Two persons were killed and 89 were injured in the Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral clashes on Monday, the health ministry announced.
Clashes broke out on Sunday afternoon outside the cathedral as mourners held a funeral for four Christians who were killed in sectarian violence in the town of Khusus, northeast of Cairo, over the weekend.
The Shura members described the ministry's performance as "catastrophic failure to protect the lives and properties of citizens throughout the past months," in a press conference aired on AlJazeera channel on Monday.
The parliamentarians, including representatives of Wafd and Egyptian Social Democratic Parties, demanded the application of the rule of law on all the involved parties, and to stop holding "customary reconciliation sessions" in cases of sectarian violence.
Egypt had been accustomed to holding such sessions following sectarian clashes through forming a committee of local leaders, Muslims and Christians, to resolve the situation, instead of resorting to state law.
Coptic Shura Member, Rami Lakah, described the cathedral clashes as the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Egyptian Christians. He called for the quick intervention of President Mohamed Mursi to restore balance to the Egyptian society.
Lakah said that the recent clashes are attacks on the Copts, rejecting any other label for the events.
