COLUMN: Persecution of Egyptian Christians must end
Some pictures are worth more than a thousand words.
In the heat of the recent Egyptian riots, Cairo resident Nevine Zaki tweeted a photo that shows a handful of Egyptian Christians holding hands as they form a human shield to guard their Muslim countrymen knelt in prayer.
Why is that picture so special?
If you understand the religious context of Egypt, the act of Christians protecting Muslims is radical. Native followers of Jesus in the Middle East have suffered inhumane persecution, and Egypt has been no exception.
The Human Rights Watch said there was "a distressing display of the growing religious intolerance in the country." They said the government has failed in enacting consequences for harming Christians and so the sectarian violence continues.
In the past two years alone, there were dozens of reported attacks made on Egyptian Christians. During one encounter, a Muslim mob beat one man to death when he refused to recant Jesus. Another instance occurred in Al Kosheh, leaving dozens (four of whom were children) dead after three days of riots.
The Wall Street Journal reported that last spring, 3,000 Muslims in Marsa Matrouh went on a rampage "after the mosque's imam exhorted them to cleanse the city of its infidel Christians, called Copts. The toll was heavy: 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars were completely destroyed, while 400 Copts barricaded themselves in their church for 10 hours until the frenzy died out."
The enslavement of Christians has also become a humanitarian issue. Last April, a bipartisan group of the U.S. Congress brought to the State Departmen their concern about the targeting of Egyptian Christian females, a profitable business in the Egyptian human trafficking market.
2011 ushered in only more persecution. During a New Year's prayer service at a church in Alexandria, 21 Christians were killed and another 79 wounded when a car bomb was set off just as members walked outside to head home.
Should President Hosni Mubarak be overthrown, there is a chance the predominately Muslim country would enact a strong Islamic government with fundamentalist leanings. Washington Post staff writer Michelle Boorstein wrote that this possibility has left many Christians terrified for what would come.
It was reprehensible when America's founding fathers claimed their essential freedoms and at the same time denied that right to slaves.
It will be just as reprehensible should the Egyptian people condemn their own corrupt government, while at the same time imitating those violent and oppressive tactics with their Christian neighbors who linked arms to defend them.
I hope this photo changes that tragic possibility.
