• 06:07
  • Wednesday ,12 June 2013
العربية

Don’t treat the Copts like an animal!

Dr. Awad Shafik

Article Of The Day

00:06

Wednesday ,12 June 2013

Don’t treat the Copts like an animal!

However the Copts are not pets to give them the governor’s leftovers, President Mohammed Morsy has decided finally to give them a permission to build a church 17 years after they first applied for it. This shows the difficulty of getting a license to build a church, and the persecution of the Copts by both the former and the current regime.

As such rare event needs a presidential decree; it was mentioned in the decree of building the Church that the Constitution was taken into account. I wonder: Which Constitution is meant? It’s known that both of them didn’t give the Copts the right to build churches. It’s only used as a card in their political game.
 
The current Constitution disseminates clearly against the Copts whose basic rights contradict with Article 219 of the Constitution. Even when the state gives the Copts a license to build a Church, the Islamists feel free to demolish and burn it down. Recently, they attacked and seized the mourned Christians in the Great Cathedral of St. Mark. They also attacked the licensed churches in Marinab, Omrania and Shubra al-Khiamah…etc.
 
The comprehensive review of human rights in Egypt 2010 demanded the Egyptian government to quickly issue the unified law of building houses of worship, which was refused by the tyrannical Egyptian government. However, this is the way it should be: Building houses of worship should be legitimized by the Constitution and law. We, the 18 million Copts, are not to be treated like an animal. As equal citizens, we should enjoy our rights and not only the leftovers of the government.