By Raymond Ibrahim – Special for CS –
Reports of Copts being killed in cold blood simply because of their Christian identity are on the rise all throughout the nation, in Upper and Lower Egypt.
Last month, on January 3 in Alexandria, a Muslim man crept up behind a Copt, 45, slit his throat and murdered him for selling alcohol. A few days later, on January 6, a Coptic man, 62, and his wife, 55, were found slaughtered, with numerous stab wounds, in their home in Monufia, north Egypt. Less than a week later, on January 13, another Coptic man, a young surgeon, was also found slaughtered in his apartment in Asyut, southern Egypt. He too had stab wounds to his neck, chest, and back.
Now, most recently, two separate murders occurred last weekend in Sinai’s al-Arish region.
On Saturday, militants shot and killed Adel Shaqi, 57, as he tried to fight them off from trying to kidnap his young son in the middle of a crowded street. After murdering the father, they seized his young Coptic son and took him to an unknown location, where he will likely be tortured, possibly killed, unless a hefty ransom is paid for him. On the next day, Sunday, unidentified militants shot and killed Bahgat William, 58, a veterinary doctor, as they left his clinic in al-‘Aboor.
Previously, on two separate occasions, two Coptic priests were killed outside their churches in Arish.
Such is the ongoing bleeding of the Copts that rarely comes to light because such “commonplace” murders are not as spectacular as the bombing of Coptic churches—for instance, last December’s bombing of St. Peter’s in Cairo—which leave many dozens dead and thus are deemed worthy of some media reporting.
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Writing about the atrocities will not let them go away. The saying that “one can’t reshape iron without another iron” is apt here. If we think for a moment that our toleration is Christianity then we are sadly ignorant of our religion. Don’t lay your hopes to be suckered by other countries, Christian or otherwise. It is up to us, both in Egypt and in the Diaspora, to act decisively and soon. If our spiritual leaders accept this inhumanity then they are cowards. I always maintain that I shall turn the other cheek once but if they persist then I shall defend myself. There is an Arabic saying “أنا مش ملطشله ” meaning I am not your whipping boy.