Egypt’s Christians in peril after vicious crackdown

The bombing of two Egyptian churches on Palm Sunday was a massive security failure, said Aya Nader in Al-monitor (Washington DC). Only a week before, a bomb had been found and defused in St George’s Church in Tanta, yet an Isis suicide bomber was allowed to walk unimpeded into the very same church, where he killed at least 27 people and injured 71. Hours later, another bomber detonated a belt outside St Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, killing another 17. Egypt’s Coptic Christians feel badly let down by President Abdul Fattah al-sisi, and for good reason. They were the first to applaud in 2013 when the general ended the Muslim Brotherhood’s chaotic rule and vowed to restore order; they thought he’d put an end to the murderous attacks on them by Salafist extremists. Yet the vicious crackdown that ensued has made them no safer. On the contrary, attacks by terror groups are spreading, and the “infidel” Copts are a prime target. Why is so little being done to protect them?

The main effect of Sisi’s repression is a shocking breakdown of civil rights, said Amr Hamzawy on Aljazeera.com (Doha). Critical journalists are arrested as terrorists and subjected to sham trials. Protesting students and workers are attacked, fired or jailed. Businesses have assets confiscated if they decline to invest in the regime’s mega-construction projects. And the rights organisations that try to defend the victims are defamed as “forces of instability and chaos” funded by foreigners. Most of Egypt’s Muslims loathe Isis, and some speak “glowingly” of close Christian friends, said Timothy E. Kaldas on Cnn.com. But too often you hear people referred to as maseehy bas kwayis (“Christian, but good”) as if it were an aberration. And too often local officials merely shrug when Christians are victimised. No one was brought to book when an elderly Christian woman was stripped and dragged through the streets after rumours her son was having a relationship with a Muslim. This climate of bigotry goes unrecognised yet it’s what helps make the attacks on Christians possible.

It was jarring to hear President Trump declare, on Sisi’s visit to the White House, that the general is doing a “fantastic job”, said Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz (Tel Aviv). But if he is to change his ways, Sisi will need more than a “pat on the back”. The $1.5bn in aid Washington provides annually is positively insulting compared with what Egypt gets from Saudi Arabia, and far too little for Egypt’s needs. To attract IMF loans, Sisi has been forced to slash subsidies, something Egypt’s leaders always tremble over. Some prices have doubled: public anger is simmering. Sisi knows he has more to fear from ordinary Egyptians than from terrorists.