It is a crime which combined an assault on Egyptian nationals on the basis of their nationality, and an attack on Christians on the basis of their religious identity. The victims have been selected by name and abducted among fellow Muslim Egyptians working in Libya. They were slaughtered in a brutal manner and the barbaric scene was filmed in a cold-blooded in order to intimidate and terrorize the Egyptian, Arab and international arena.
It is hence a crime that combines terrorism and religious and sectarian violence. It was committed in the name of Islamic religion by an organized and armed group, against unarmed non-Muslims, described as "crusaders" using medieval language, while they are among the poorest of Egyptians, who only went to Libya in search of livelihood despite the serious and unstable situation in that country.
This inhuman crime stabbed the national dignity of the Egyptian people when hthey saw the ugliness of the bloody scene, and felt that the attack on these innocent was an assault on the whole of Egypt. Perhaps this ordeal which all Egyptians went through will also open our eyes to the ugliness of religious and sectarian violence and the extent of the injustice on which it is based and hence arouse in us the highest feelings of justice and brotherhood and rejection of sectarianism, as it did touch our humanitarian and patriotic feelings.
But the media ignored the sectarian nature of the crime for allegedly to bring Egyptians together and to avoid sectarian strife , given its grave effects on national security. However, this has led the media to refrain from denouncing sectarianism. The question is: How to avoid sectarian strife while avoiding to talk about it and address it in the public discourse?
If religious and sectarian violence has reached a crescendo in its cruelty and ugliness in this crime by the Islamic State, we must be aware that the domestic scene of religious violence experienced by groups of non-Muslim Egyptians inside their homeland is no less in ugliness. It is daily violence committed inside the country, which often evolves into bloody events. It is not committed by an armed enemy but by brothers of the homeland. It is not retaliated by air strikes, but often the society on the whole fails to even face it.
We in the group Masryoun Against Religious Discrimination (MARED) and the Egyptians In One Homeland organization feel relieved, like all Egyptians, by the Egyptian air strikes, which were immediately done, in coordination with the Libyan army, against the Daesh sites in Libya. The promise to build a church in the village of the victims may somewhat calmer the families. But we feel that we should not be satisfied with this response by the government.
Therefore, we call upon civil society organizations and political parties to act strongly and mobilize their constituencies to declare their complete rejection of sectarian and killing on the basis of (religious) identity, as much as their rejection of terrorism and by organizing a large demonstration at the level of the whole country to offer condolences for the martyrs and make a powerful declaration to reject terrorism and religious and sectarian violence.
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(*) On behalf of MARED and EIOH. Dr. Megahed is a founder and the general coordinator of MARED. This article was translated from Arabic by CS.