According to a new Arabic report, during the last few days there were a lot of assaults throughout the governate of Asyut. After criminal groups and gangs managed to acquire guns and weapons, they attacked Christians to abuse them and to control their sources of income, including to finance their [gang] activities. They forced Copts to pay lots of money as “tax” in order not to steal and/or plunder their lands.
No one has been able to oppose them or even say no, because they simply kill Christians and their families as happened in the village of Shameiya when two Copts refused to pay the tax: the gang killed them and this was repeated in many other villages belonging to the governorate of Asyut. It is becoming so normal now to watch as these crimes against Christians occur day by day and nothing is done. The village of Sahel Seleem is now famous for holding these kinds of gangs, because of its geography as a very harsh desert.
Hanna Grees Sorial, one of the land owners, said that he has owned a piece of land about 685 square meters at Sahel for more than 25 years now, with his brothers Raafat and Wagih, and he has all the documents of property and all the permissions too—but one day he was surprised when his father phoned him and told him that some members of the gangs installed themselves at their property and built a fence around it. They asked him to pay 100,000 LE (16,700 US dollars.) to return his land back.
He continued by saying that he was shocked to hear that that piece of land is just a few meters away from the police station. So he went to the police station and reported the incident no. 2082 for the year 2013 accusing Yosry Hamed, Mohamed Abdelwahab and Luli Farhan, all Muslims, of an armed invasion of his land and other lands of Christian owners at the village. They were arrested for investigation but, as often happens, quickly released.
In retaliation, moments later, one of the gang members called him to say that it is no longer 100,000 Egyptian pounds they demand in return for his land, but 800,000, since he accused them; they also threatened to kill him and his family if he called the police again, so he moved his family to somewhere else for their protection, and sent a lot of messages to the governor for help and to the minister of interior. But no help came and nothing was done.
Hanna further said that “the gangs abuse Christians because we are a peaceful minority; we hate violence and they use that against us, seizing our money to buy weapons and to finance their atrocities against the poor and innocent ones.