Last week I wrote an article entitled Copts between martyrdom and citizenship after the terrorist attack on St. Peter Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, in which 27 Copts were killed and dozens were severely injured. Today, I decided to write another article entitled “Copts between hatred and citizenship” after an Islamic preacher called Shiekh Mahmoud Lotfy announced that hatred is an Islamic mandatory, especially against Copts and other infidels. He explained that Muslims should hate non-Muslims and their rituals. The statement comes few days after the terrorist attack that targeted a Coptic church, while celebrating the Holy Mass, killing mostly women and children, as if it comes to give strong excuse to the terrorist and encourage others to follow his lead. This should lead Copts to ask questions about equal citizenship in their homeland with many Islamic preachers repeating the same words and inciting hatred against what they consider Christian minority in an Islamic country.

The terrorist bombing that targeted St. Peter Church in Cairo on December 11, 2016, proved once again that it can’t be related to a religion. Such dirty act has nothing to do with humanity, as humans can’t plan to kill women and children and cause massive destruction. Al-Azhar has condemned this cowardly attack, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and every human being with a sound conscience. Everybody rushed to offer their sincere condolences for families of the victims and the Coptic Church.

As Google was celebrating 104 years of Doria Shafiq’s birthday, the terrorists were celebrating the suicide attack carried out by the 22 years old Mahmoud Shafiq. The huge gap between the two persons lies not only in time, but also in the way of thinking. Shafiq who struggled against the English occupation and strived to liberate women is different from the young boy who came from Upper Egypt. The woman searched, wrote and struggled, while the man carried out a suicide bombing attack to kill many women and children. The one million dollar question is: how did the young Shafiq and his friends took control over Egypt instead of Doria Shafiq?

A small chapel lies next to the Great Cathedral of St. Mark in Abbasia district was attacked by a suicide bomber. The historic church is more than 100 years old and was chosen to kill dozens of innocent worshipers most of which are women and children.

Well I missed you last week for personal reasons but you all know – my readers if there is any one – I love talking to you all not too sure if I do have any followers or readers but in my imagination I feel like talking to you not writing an article! My comment of the News I got of Egypt You all know I'm not in Egypt since some time back and due to TV receiver problems I have no Egyptian channels EMTV or CBC or and broadcasting from Egypt the only channel I follow is RIK 1 TV a Cyprus related channel that brings new of Aleppo in Syria -حلب فى سوريا- or Peter's cathedral bombing and I see afterwards Egyptians' reactions on Facebook, and on this issue I would like to say:- Remember we are fighting and in war with terrorists and terror, do not let the issue get out of proportions; When a TV presenter reads the news he might not be a terrorist himself, or the one who wrote the news or the director of that channel they are just doing their job and are not supposed to think ahead how we would receive the news, we clam dead of the bombing are Martyrs others see them victims and many more they just see a dead person, nominations is not the issue but using your sorrows on those victims, martyrs dead or what so ever nomination is to ignite vengeance and revenge forgetting that Christianity calls for redemption and forgiveness!

Egyptians have been asking the same question for a long time now. This question is: why can't the lower class feel or see any improvements despite the economic reform that all governments have been proclaiming to adopt to improve poverty and the middle class. I can assure you, that Egyptians will never feel any imporvement either short term or long term if economic reforms are not adopted, and fair tax systems not imposed. It is widely known that the exact same taxes are collected from rich people, as they are collected from the poor and middle classes. However, this should not be the same percentage, because it is only making the poor more poor, and the middle class move towards being poor as well. Having said that, we can see that the Egyptian tax system is now based on an unfair tax system. We can see that the most heavily taxed people are the government employees and the public sector employees as well. At the same time, we can see that the richest people pay the same percentage as the poor people. Furthermore, they try to create their own ways to escape and report unreal facts about their profits so they can pay less taxes. In conclusion, I want to advise that the only way the government will see a real change in Egyptian life, they will have to adopt a different approach to the their tax system.

Copts have been raised on the idea of accepting martyrdom as martyrs enjoy superior rank in their church. Therefore, the Coptic Church has offered thousands of martyrs throughout its history. Those martyrs were simply victims of tyranny or fanatics who don’t like their faith and want to get rid of it forever. Copts refused to abandon their faith and therefore they were brutally tortured and killed. Copts have always accepted such suffering remembering the teachings of Jesus Christ in the Holy Bible in which he said: “yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service”

The Arab countries are facing waves of conspiracies and threats including those by Iran and threats to their oil industry. Yet, the thirty-seventh session of the summit of the leaders of the six Gulf states was held under the supervision of Great Britain and in the presence of its Prime Minister Theresa May who declared that the security of the Gulf states is security of Britain. The Arab leaders should not forget about years of occupation by the British Empire when they rush to meet with the British Prime Minister and talking her presence with excessive pride. Such interest comes by the Saudi Kingdom after America has changed its policy toward the kingdom and issued Justice against Sponsors of Terrorism Act that considers the Saudi Kingdom a sponsor of terrorism that should compensate the victims of terrorism billions of dollars. This coincides with the new policy embraced by Donald Trump that will not be very friendly with them. The Muslim Brotherhood will be considered a terrorist group and the Iranian threat against the Saudi Arabia led the kingdom and several Gulf countries to ask for help from Israel and took the British ally that still supports the Muslim Brotherhood. In return, Britain will gain a lot of money from the Gulf countries that will also purchase military defense systems. This is their alternative to the agreement of joint Arab force sponsored by Egypt knowing its importance to the Arab security. However, Saudi Arabia prefers it English - Israeli.

First, I offer my sincere condolences to the martyrs who shed their pure blood as a result of the vicious terrorist act that targeted the Petrine Church in Cairo.

The bombing of the Saints Church in Alexandria was not planned by Egyptian police simply because they don’t know how to plan. They only know how to torture and kill their unarmed victims. They do so because they don’t know how to interrogate and follow the perpetrators. Instead, they annoy human rights activists and monitor their accounts on Facebook. The lawyer demanding the rights of Magdy McCain was arrested and sexually harassed while she was blindfolded, and later police called the terrorists cowards! The recent terrorist attack at the Coptic Christen Patriarchate proved police are good-for-nothing. Those who are supposed to protect the churches don’t really believe they are important. In fact, they can’t protect the churches since they can’t even protect themselves. They are failing because of their arrogance, negligence and lack of power.

The terrorism attack that happened recently against the Church of St. Peter, located inside the Coptic Cathedral shows us, that without a doubt, the Copts have a history, and are a living history, of sacrifice. Martyrdom is something the Coptic people have gotten used to since the time Islam invaded Egypt. Before that, it was the Roman Empire who considered Christians as rebels. This terrorism attack not only shows the teachings of hatred in schools and mosques, and how it leads to disasters such as these tragedies, but also shows that unless Egypt takes serious steps to eliminate these insulting teachings towards other religions we will continue down this road. This attack aslso shows how the police is so careless about protecting the rights and freedoms any Egyptian Christian should be able to practice.

Talking about the prices in Egypt, everybody will say that prices are increasing in Egypt and the people are suffering more and more. However, these are not the prices I meant in the title. The prices that are going down in Egypt are the prices of the workers. The floating of the Egyptian pound caused the prices to increase, but such increase was not reflected on the wages. The US dollar prices jumped from about 8.5 LE to about 17 LE. This means that the wages are cut off by 50%. The worker who earned 3000 LE was receiving about 353$ per month couple of months ago. Now, the same worker receives about 176$ per month. The workers who work for the minimum wages of 1200 LE are now receiving 71$ per month instead of 174$ couple of months ago.

The Gulf, which I mean in this article, is not the Arabian Gulf, but the Gulf of Suez with the tremendous petroleum discovery of an English company working in the Gulf of Suez. The new oil mount Includes reserves of two hundred and fifty million barrels that should be ready to go very soon. The discovery gives extra hope to the suffering Egyptian economy, and adds to the Egyptian precautions of gas and oil to unprecedented levels. We may not only stop importing gas and oil, but we can also start exporting them.

As everybody expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidential elections in America, God had another plan to change the world destiny. Therefore, Donald Trump won the elections to be the 45 president of America against all expectations. This came after Egypt made a miracle by overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood in June 30. Yet, America has gone mad to lose its terrorist arm in Egypt, and to break its plans to divide the region. The United States increased its plots against Egypt and used media to spread rumors and reduced the financial aid. On the other hand, this has not achieved their goals and the Egyptian state became even stronger. The Egyptian people were united against such plots and the army became more powerful. The Egyptian president kept his relations with American officials and started new era of relations with countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. He imported weapons from different countries and restored security in Egypt and waged a fierce war against terrorism supported by America in Sinai.

St. Paul invited the people in (1 Corinthians 16: 13) to Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Furthermore, it is translated in the Arabic version to be strong as men. This means to be courageous and brave. Such courage disappears several times in hardships. For instance, Adam blamed Eve for eating from the tree.

I have talked many times about the culture of hatred that Egyptians have. I don't believe that Egyptians are peaceful people, contrary to what the media is trying to proclaim. There are many things that have happened in the last 2 decades that has made Egyptians very violent and hatefull of everything.

As time passes and people keep blaming ex-president Mubarak for all the misery Egyptians still suffering from; Very poor people; corrupted police officers, military forces still helping around no one else capable to solve those problems? Should it be the Army? Well the collapse of Education system was it Mubarak's fault? Our new respectful parliament that all they could do is prosecute R.I.P. Naguib Mahfouze or call all university girls “Whores” and they can not see the degradation in male's attitudes and more is it still Mubarak's fault? Long time ago when the King was still a King in power, he had a parliament that its members refused to be pawns in a chess board they refused the British occupation and was the 1919 revolution Saad Zagloul was expelled not by the King but by the occupation British forces but history did open all doors to him!

Egypt was elected for a five-year term in the 34-member International Law Commission of the UN General Assembly on Friday. Ambassador Amr Abu Atta, Egypt's permanent delegate to the United Nations said that this election reflects international confidence in Egyptian competence and expertise, particularly in the field of international law. 11 candidates from Africa competed for the membership, but the Egyptian candidate Ambassador Hussein Hassouna won 146 votes while he only needed 97. Egypt is getting better relationships with Africa and the world, and therefore, we should stop claiming there is a conspiracy against Egypt and should start working hard as this is the only way to progress. I wish Egypt and its Ambassador Hussein Hassouna the best.

Leaders of the major powers are keen on planning and consider it crucial for their countries and peoples. They use all means to make such plans work for the benefit of their countries and people. Consequently, the Arab countries suffered from a Zionist American plan known as the “Arab spring” Such plans started many years ago, and the Muslim Brotherhood was used to make the plan work. The MB came in power and they decided to sell the Egyptian land in Sinai and divide Egypt. Yet, God saved Egypt by its great son, president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who supported his people and nation from such evil schemes. However, the enemies of Egypt refused to see the massive demonstrations of 33 million Egyptians calling for the overthrown of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian people are very familiar with torture and insulting for thousands of years. They were occupied by several countries, ruled by kings who were overthrown in the revolution of July 23. For years, security services tortured the people decided to reject such insult and torture in the revolution of January 25, 2011. The regime was overthrown but the people couldn’t be very optimistic as human rights in general as well as the rights of the minorities were violated as usual. Once again people are tortured and insulted in police stations even if they are innocent!

The over reaction to the visit of Abba Makarious, Bishop of Minya, to family of the Coptic man who was killed in police station Magdy McCain in order to offer his consonances in Magdy’s death was very strange to me, especially as the Coptic MP Nadia Henary was there offering her sincere condolences as well. In fact, I didn’t find any official reactions to Coptic clergy against any torture incidents. No religion supports torture, but church has always tried to keep pace with the regimes though they never stopped violating rights of the poor, women and Copts.