Church protest sparks Cairo riots

Christians in Cairo have been attacked during protests

Πηγή: Belfast Telegraph
Oct 9 2011


Riots have erupted in Cairo as Christians protesting about a recent attack on a church came under assault by thugs who rained stones down on them and fired pellets.

Two soldiers were killed in the melee, according to state television, and a number of military vehicles were burning on a scenic street along the Nile.

Gunshots rang out at the scene outside the state television building, where lines of riot police with shields tried to hold back hundreds of Christian protesters chanting "This is our country."

Thick black smoke filled the air from the burning vehicles. Security forces eventually fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.

An Interior Ministry official at the scene said two people had been killed, but he did not say who they were or how they died. State television said 30 soldiers were injured.

Thugs with sticks chased the Christian protesters from the site, banging metal street signs. Television footage of the riots showed some of the Coptic protesters attacking a soldier, while a priest tried to protect him.

The trouble began when thousands of Coptic Christians protesting against the latest attack on a church in southern Egypt came under attack as they chanted denunciations of Egypt's military rulers, whom they accuse of leniency in dealing with a series of anti-Christian attacks.

"The people want to topple the field marshal," the protesters yelled, referring to the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi.

The rally began in the Shubra district of northern Cairo, then headed to the state television building overlooking the Nile where men in plain clothes attacked the Christian protesters. It was not immediately clear who the attackers were.

Egypt's Coptic Christian minority makes up about 10% of the country's population of more than 80 million people. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of this year's uprising, Christians are particularly worried about the increasing show of power by the ultraconservative Islamists.