The phenomenon of kidnapping wealthy Copts and blackmailing them to pay ransom has become a dominant trend since the January 25 Revolution. Qena’s city of Naj’ Hamādī in Upper Egypt witnessed a number of incidents involving Copts in an attempt to steal their money and wealth. The crimes continued to increase and the number of abducted persons reached 36 individuals, including 34 people from Naj’ Hamādī, one from Dishnā and one from Qena. Money paid as ransom to the kidnappers released the people of Naj’ Hamādī. The incident pushed Naj’ Hamādī’s Coptic Orthodox Bishop Kyrillos to hold a press conference to bring attention to the number of kidnappings that have targeted Copts and to pressure security forces to face the increasing criminality and abduction, which according to him, are all over the country. Bishop Kyrillos suggested that security forces are not as well equipped as the criminals, which led finally to the demonstration of police officers demanding ammunition for better protection of their own lives and those of the people. Asked whether he sees these abductions as targeting only Christians, he said that the number of kidnapped Christians is 99 to 1 Muslim abducted.
Asked on who is to be held accountable for lack of security in the country, Bishop Kyrillos commented that the President failed to protect the people who gave him their votes, denouncing the killing of the journalist in front of the presidential palace and considering such as a crime against freedom of opinion.
The difference between abducted Christians before and after the Revolution, as the Bishop said, is that before the Revolution, abductions and attacks on Christians were orchestrated by the Egyptian State Security Investigations Service (SSI) to secure the position of former Minister of Interior Habīb al-’Adlī, while after the Revolution it is mainly due to weak law enforcement on all levels.
During the Constituent Assembly, the Coptic Orthodox Church members withdrew, while the Azhar representatives remained: does this suggest a difference in points of view between the two religious authorities? Bishop Kyrillos commented that the relationship between the Church and Azhar has never been distorted. The Azhar representative decided to continue because it realized that there were attempts to “deceive” it.
As for the fatwá forbidding festive greetings to Christians, the Bishop commented that a large number of Muslims came to the Church to offer their greetings, defying such “nonsense”, as he said. He noted that a congratulatory message from the Freedom and Justice Party has been delivered on the gates of the Church during the Christmas Mass on January 6 (Yūsuf Sha’bān and Peter Majdī, al-Tahrīr, Jan. 12, p. 7). Read original text in Arabic.
