Thursday, June 01, 2006

Some well spoken points at the Coptic protest of the King Tut exhibit

The link is here (link).

Supporters of the Coptic rights movement protested outside the opening of the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibit at the Field Museum of Natural History last week.

some of the Copts there articulated their points simply and (in my opinion) very well:

"Now is the time for the government to stop dividing the Muslims from the Copts," said Atef Mackar, a Copt from Downers Grove.

"We have no problem with Islam or Muslims," he said. "We have a problem with the system and how the system helps fuel hatred."


and:

"Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid," Halim said. "We don’t want the aid to stop," he said. "But we want it to be contingent on respecting human rights in the Middle East and especially in Egypt."

and:

"You can count churches on your hands," he said. "Twenty weddings are held in one night. People have no place to pray or to be buried."


These are three very straight forward points:

1. Stop the system that promotes division
(a system that has actively limits copts in the fields of law, education, medicine and government jobs)

2. Tie US aid to human rights

3. Let us build some more churches


I pray that this simple, but necessary and basic message of human dignity is heard.

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