On Friday the 19th of March 2010 hundreds of local Coptic Christians and supporters from many other Christian churches came together to pray for the safety of Christians in Egypt. Orderly crowds carrying crosses, signs and candles filled Martin Place to hear the dignitaries and choirs, and to join their hearts together in prayer, as a sincere plea for public recognition of the humanitarian disaster that is befalling their people in Egypt.
Egypt has been Christian since 54 AD, and there are currently 12 million Christian Copts in modern Egypt, which is 15% of the population. There has been an escalation by the majority population in recent years of unprovoked attacks on the homes, businesses, churches and community centres, as well as individuals identified as Coptic Christian. In fact there have been nearly 300 major attacks over the past 3 decades, including the 6 January 2010 Nag Hammadi drive-by shooting murders outside a church after Christmas services – but there has been scant media coverage of this event or analysis of how it fits into the ongoing reality of the outright discrimination and persecution of Copts by the majority culture in Egypt. Copts suspect that the government was aware of the attack ahead of time because there was an unusual absence of the security forces normally on-site during festivities in order to guard churches and direct traffic.
Indeed, it is evident that many of these attacks have been carried out by the National Security Forces of Egypt, who should have been responsible for the protection of all Egyptian citizens. There is also a blatant pattern of acquittal or light sentences for murders of Copts, which should appal all humanitarians and those who respect the rule of law. There is now an average of one attack weekly on the Coptic community.
His Grace Bishop Anba Suriel of Melbourne recently spoke out against this state of affairs, asserting that it is basically evolving into a form of apartheid because no Member of Parliament is ever a Copt, nor it there one Copt head of a university, despite the Copts being a very well-educated people. At the Martin Place vigil a Youth representative from the Australian Coptic Movement expressed solidarity with other Copts across the world who now intend to address the issue of human rights in Egypt in a more vocal and unified manner.
The Egyptian Constitution states that ‘all people are equal under the law’ but in practice this is not observed. There is a great deal of indignation and outrage amongst the 70,000 Coptic Australians, many of whom have contacted the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with letters, emails and telephone calls about these issues. In response the Australian authorities have done nothing. They should have told the Egyptian ambassador that human rights violations in Egypt are condemned by the Australian Government and people, and called the genocide against Egypt’s Christians what it is: extermination of a culture. As signatories to the UN Convention on Human Rights Australia should be outspoken on these issues but instead are doing nothing about it, not standing up for human rights as have the USA and EU in their statements to the Government of Egypt.
I support the Coptic Christian community in Australia in their ongoing efforts to bring worldwide attention to the situation in Egypt, and join my prayers with theirs that we may all live in harmony someday.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC