Thursday, February 22, 2007

Copts forced to declare they set their own homes on fire.

ISTANBUL, February 22 (Compass Direct News) – Police detained Christian families in Upper Egypt and forced them to deny arson attacks on their homes during a spate of anti-Christian violence last week, the families said.

Two Coptic Orthodox families said police detained them for 36 hours when they attempted to report a February 13 assault on their homes in Armant, 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of Cairo.

The fires came five days after Muslim groups set four Christian-owned shops alight on February 9.

International media reported that rumors of a love affair between a Christian man and Muslim woman sparked the violence, but local papers said hostilities began over accusations that Christians were blackmailing Muslim women to convert.

In the wake of the violence, police detained eight Muslim young men and Copt Ramy Ishaq, whose relationship with a 19-year-old Muslim woman was the basis for the romance rumors, sources in Armant told Compass.


The rest of the story is here.

(Source) Compass Direct

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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Salvo