Here yet again we see that the persecution of Christians in Egypt all too often takes the form of official harassment from authorities who either initiate or condone the persecution. An elderly woman, Souad Thabet was stripped and humiliated, and five Christian homes were burned. But now, under the guise of a spurious reconciliation, the Christians who witnessed all this have been forced to recant. And since those who should be protecting the Christians are the ones who brought about this supposed reconciliation, the Christians have no recourse.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Egypt, see here.
“Coptic Christians Forced to Reconcile,” International Christian Concern, February 13, 2020:
02/13/2020 Egypt (International Christian Concern) – Last month, an Egyptian court sentenced to ten years in jail the individuals in Karm village responsible for stripping an elderly Coptic woman, Souad Thabet, of her clothes in 2016. Five Christian houses were burned during the incident. Following this sentence, pressure in the village has been building towards the Coptic Christian community.
Last week, a reconciliation meeting was pursued. These are meetings between Muslims and Christians where, theoretically, justice for the wrongdoing is conducted outside the judicial system. In practice, reconciliation meetings are used to force Christians to abandon their pursuit of justice, and often even force them to give up even more of their rights.
The first reconciliation meeting was held on February 2nd, as local Christians feared that the prison sentence would incite local Muslims to violence against Copts. During this meeting, the Christians changed their testimony to say that they did not see any of their houses burning. Saoud Thabet was the only one who did not change her testimony. The testimonies of those other Christians during the reconciliation session was confirmed on February 10th, leading to the judicial case to be postponed until April 16th….
