“We stand with you not as Labor or Liberal politicians, but as Australians,” Mr Bowen told the crowd. “We share your grief today.”
Mr Bowen said the routing of tyranny and dictatorships in the Middle East had all too often been followed by violence and despair. “Today we say: Let Egypt be different. Let Egypt shine the way forward for other countries in the Middle East. Let Egypt be a nation which gives all members of its community the right to live in freedom, regardless of their religion, regardless of their beliefs.”
Mr Abbott said he was honoured to share the grief of Australia’s 100,000-strong Coptic community and “to speak out loud and clear and strong for the universal decencies of mankind”.
“It is an outrage what has happened to your community,” he said. “It is an outrage which should cry out to heaven for rectification.”
Mr Abbott called on the government to set aside a set number of places each year in Australia’s humanitarian program for Copts fleeing persecution, as the Howard government had done.
___________________________
The Australian, October 24