2011 Imbaba church attacks | |
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Location | Imbaba, Giza, Egypt |
Coordinates | 30°04′34″N31°12′32″E / 30.07615°N 31.208882°E |
Date | 7 May 2011 16:00 local time (UTC+2) |
Target | Coptic Christians |
Attack type | Shooting and arson |
Deaths | 15 |
Injured | 232 |
Perpetrators | Salafi Muslims |
The 2011 Imbaba church attacks were a series of attacks that took place in Egypt on 7 May 2011 against Coptic Christian churches in the poor working-class neighborhood of Imbaba in Giza, near Cairo. The attacks were blamed on Salafi Muslims, [1] and the attacks began when the Muslims attacked the Coptic Orthodox church of Saint Mina, where they alleged a Christian woman was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam. [2] [3] [4] The attacks resulted in the burning of 3 Coptic Orthodox churches, and the destruction of many Christian-owned houses and businesses. In addition, 15 people were killed in the attacks, and about 232 injured. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Among those killed were four Christians and six Muslims, while two other bodies were still unidentified. [11] Imbaba has been known to be a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalists since the 1970s, but also comprises a significant number of Coptic Christians. [9] [12]
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The attack began when a mob estimated at 500 "hard-line" Salafi Muslims attacked the Coptic Orthodox church of Saint Mina in Imababa, claiming that a Christian convert to Islam was held hostage there. [1] [8] [10] [12] [13] Christians denied that anybody was being held hostage, and police search of the church did not reveal anything. [9] Yet, Muslims insisted on attacking the church. When the Christians protected their church and refused that the Muslims raid it, the Muslims opened gunfire at them, and threw firebombs and molotov cocktails. [9] [11] There were no guns with the Christians, and no gunshots were shot from within the church. [11] During the attacks, the two sides also exchanged the throwing of stones. [1] [11] Apartments and shops belonging to the Christians were also torched and destroyed. [3] [9]
After torching the Coptic Orthodox church of Saint Mina, Salafis went ahead and burned another church, the Coptic Orthodox church of the Virgin Mary, also in Imbaba. [1] [9] [12] [13]
Military soldiers later arrived to repel the Muslim protesters. Copts also scuffled with the soldiers, blaming them for not doing enough to protect them. [3] Nearby, firefighters also fought to control a blaze started at the Coptic Orthodox church of the Virgin Mary. [2]
The Copts then took to the streets to protest the attacks, chanting "Oh God! Oh Jesus!", and "We sacrifice our souls and blood for the Holy Cross". [9] [11] They also clashed with army soldiers, blaming them for not doing enough to protect the Christians and their churches. [11] On the other hand, Salafi Muslims demonstrated shouting "We sacrifice our souls and blood for Islam" [9] While other Muslims, especially residents of the area shouted "Muslims and Christians are one hand", with both Muslim and Christian residents of Imbaba attempting to protect the churches and stop the fires and violence. Many blamed the police and army forces for remaining as bystanders without intervening while the two groups were clashing together. [9] In addition, many injured victims could not be transported to hospitals because the ambulance cars were prevented from entering the area of clashes. [9]
The year 2011 was marked by an increased violence against Egypt's Coptic Christian minority by Muslim radicals. The year began with the bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, which left 23 dead. [2] Claims that Coptic Christian women who had converted to Islam have been kidnapped by Coptic authorities and held in churches or monasteries has exacerbated the tension. [2] Such claims were adopted by an al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq responsible for the 2010 Baghdad church attack on 31 October 2010. The group, the Islamic State of Iraq, vowed further attacks against Christians until two Coptic women, who they allege converted to Islam and were being held against their will, were freed. [3] On 29 April, some 2,000 Muslims protested outside the Coptic Church's headquarters in Cairo, demanding the release of the two alleged imprisoned converts. [3]
None of these claims was founded. In fact, the Imbaba church attacks took place on the same day a video was broadcast featuring Kamilia Shehata, one of these two Christian woman whom the Muslims claimed had converted to Islam and was being held hostage by the Coptic Church. [9] In that video, Kamilia Shehata affirmed that she was Christian and had never converted to Islam. She also mentioned that everything the Salafis said about her were "lies" and "completely wrong facts". Kamilia Shehata had been a major focus of Salafi activism since 2010. They had organized several marches in Alexandria calling for her release and attacking Pope Shenouda III. They also threatened to attack churches in order to free her. [12] On 29 April 2011, about 2,000 Salafi Muslims protested outside the headquarters of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral to demand the release of Kamilia Shehata. [11] These claims of the Coptic Church holding Kamilia Shehata hostage were picked up by Al Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq to justify their 2010 Baghdad church attack, which resulted in the massacre of 58 Christians in Iraq. [11] The group also vowed more attacks until Kamilia was released. [11] Two months later, on New Year's Eve 2011, a suicide bomber killed 23 Coptic Christians in the 2011 Alexandria bombing. [10]
According to the investigatory commission charged with investigating the events that took place in Imbaba, the attacks were initiated by Salafi Muslims with collaboration from some Muslim thugs who live in the neighborhood. [14] According to the commission, the aggressors organized themselves into two groups; the first firing gunshots to prevent the Christians from protecting the church, while the second group broke into the church and completely torched it. [14] Egypt's human rights council also blamed the Salafi Muslims for the attack. [3] The human rights council also blamed the Salafis for "the intensification of extremist religious interpretations that propose rearranging Egyptian society to exclude Christians." [3]
The Christian Copts who were injured in the attacks strongly criticized the Muslim Salafis and accused them of instigating and staging the attacks. One particular prominent Salafi figure, Mohamed Hassan, took much of the blame. The Christian victims also expressed their concerns about being the targets of systematic attacks, and about the hesitancy of the police and the military to protect them. [12]
Immediately following the attacks, a few Copts demonstrated in front of the American Embassy in Cairo, calling for international protection of Egypt's Christian community, and criticizing the Egyptian government for not doing enough to protect them. [6] [12]
On the day following the attack, thousands of Christians protested in Tahrir Square and in front of Maspiro television building against the government's leniency towards the aggressors and to call for immediate investigation into the clashes and the torching of churches. [7] [12] [15] The Christian protesters were met with stones and bricks thrown from rooftops, and various clashes erupted between Christians and Muslims, which resulted in the injury of 42 people. [6] Christians also demonstrated in Alexandria to denounce the attack on their churches in Imbaba. [16]
The attacks had profound impact on the relationship between Muslims and Christians in Egypt. [17] For the first time, Coptic Christians decided to form self-defense militias to protect Christian churches, homes and businesses. Essam Sharaf, the Egyptian prime minister, promised to implement within 30 days a new legislation that lifted the restrictions facing the construction of new Christian churches in Egypt, and standardized the requirements needed for building houses of worship belonging to all faiths. [3] [18] The Egyptian government also passed a new law criminalizing discrimination based on religion, [18] and another banning demonstrations and gatherings outside places of worship. [3]
Following the attacks, the Egyptian army declared it had arrested 190 people in connection with the clashes. [12]
The Coptic Orthodox Church, also known as the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt. The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the pope of Alexandria on the Holy Apostolic See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Father of fathers, Shepherd of shepherds, Ecumenical Judge and the 13th among the Apostles. The See of Alexandria is titular. The Coptic pope presides from Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The church follows the Coptic Rite for its liturgy, prayer and devotional patrimony. Adherents of the Coptic Orthodox Church make up Egypt's largest and most significant minority population, and the largest population of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). They make up the largest percentage of approximately 20 million Christians in Egypt.
Pope Shenouda III was the 117th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. His papacy lasted 40 years, 4 months, and 4 days, from 14 November 1971 until his death.
Copts are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt since antiquity. They are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and Libya. Copts in Egypt account for roughly 5–15 percent of the Egyptian population; Copts in Sudan account for 1 percent of the Sudanese population, while Copts in Libya similarly account for 1 percent of the Libyan population.
Religion in Egypt controls many aspects of social life and is endorsed by law. The state religion of Egypt is Islam, although estimates vary greatly in the absence of official statistics. Since the 2006 census religion has been excluded, and thus available statistics are estimates made by religious and non-governmental agencies. The country is majority Sunni Muslim, with the next largest religious group being Coptic Orthodox Christians. The exact numbers are subject to controversy, with Christians alleging that they have been systemically under-counted in existing censuses.
Christianity is the second largest religion in Egypt. The vast majority of Egyptian Christians are Copts. As of 2019, Copts in Egypt make up approximately 10 percent of the nation's population, with an estimated population of 9.5 million or 10 million. In 2018, approximately 90% of Egyptian Christians were Coptic Orthodox.
The Monastery of Saint Fana is a Coptic Orthodox monastery. It is named after Saint Fana, also known as Bane, Coptic Christian hermit. The monastery is sometimes called the Monastery of Abu Fanah and is also known as the Monastery of the Cross, due to the presence of many beautifully decorated crosses inside its church.
The persecution of Copts and discrimination against Coptic Orthodox Christians are historic and widespread issues in Egypt. Their treatment is indicative of the poor status of Christians in the Middle East more widely, despite the fact that the religion is native to the Middle East, and that Christianity in Egypt dates back to the Roman era. Copts are the indigenous Christians in Egypt, usually Oriental Orthodox, who currently make up 10% of the population—the largest religious minority of that country. Copts have cited instances of persecution throughout their history and Human Rights Watch has noted "growing religious intolerance" and sectarian violence against Coptic Christians in recent years, as well as a failure by the Egyptian government to effectively investigate properly and prosecute those responsible. However, as political violence is common many churches believe that the attacks against the church are not religious statements, instead political statements. Since 2011, hundreds of Egyptian Copts have been killed in sectarian clashes, and many homes, churches and businesses have been destroyed. In just one province (Minya), 77 cases of sectarian attacks on Copts between 2011 and 2016 have been documented by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. The abduction and disappearance of Coptic Christian women and girls also remains a serious ongoing problem.
Oriental Orthodoxy is the communion of Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils—the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople and the Council of Ephesus. They reject the dogmatic definitions of the Council of Chalcedon. Hence, these Churches are also called Old Oriental Churches or Non-Chalcedonian Churches.
The Islamization of Egypt occurred after the 7th century Arab conquest of Egypt, in which the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate seized control of Egypt from the Christian Byzantine Empire. Egypt and other conquered territories in the Middle East underwent a large scale gradual conversion from Christianity to Islam, accompanied by jizya for those who refused to convert. Islam became the dominant faith by the 10th to 12th centuries, and Arabic replaced Coptic as the vernacular language and Greek as the official language.
The Nag Hammadi massacre was a massacre of Coptic Christians carried out on the eve of 7 January 2010, in the Egyptian city of Nag Hammadi. The massacre occurred at the hands of Muslim gunmen in front of the Nag Hammadi cathedral, as Coptic Christians were leaving the church after celebrating the midnight Christmas Divine Liturgy. The massacre resulted in the murder of eight Copts and one Muslim bystander. Nine other Copts were confirmed to be wounded, and two Muslims were reportedly wounded in the attack. Egypt's Interior Ministry said it suspected the attack was motivated by the alleged rape by a Christian of a Muslim girl.
Kamilia Shehata Zakher is a schoolteacher in Deir Mawas, Egypt, and wife of Tadros Samaan, the Coptic Priest of Saint Mark's Church in Mowas Cathedral in Minya. Her disappearance in July 2010 sparked protests and rumours of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam. Her subsequent return to the Church inflamed sectarian tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and Coptic Christian minority.
The 2011 Alexandria bombing was an attack on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, 1 January 2011. 23 people died and another 97 were injured as a result of the attack, which occurred as Christian worshipers were leaving a New Year service. The attack was the deadliest act of violence against Egypt's Coptic Christians in a decade, since the Kosheh massacre in 2000 left 20 Copts dead. The target of the bombing was the Saints Church, a Coptic church located across the street from the Masjid Sharq El-Madina mosque.
The Maspero Massacre initially started as demonstrations in October 2011 by a group dominated by Egyptian Copts in reaction to the demolition of a church in Upper Egypt claimed to be built without the appropriate license. The peaceful protesters who intended to stage a sit-in in front of the Maspiro television building were attacked by security forces and the army, resulting in 24 deaths, mostly among the Coptic protestors, and 212 injuries, most of which were sustained by Copts.
Copts in Egypt refers to Coptic Christians born in or residing in Egypt.
On 11 December 2016, a suicide bomber killed 189 people and injured 400+ others at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, a chapel next to Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope, in Cairo's Abbasia district. Egypt's President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi identified the bomber as 22-year-old Mahmoud Shafiq Mohammed Mustafa, who had worn a suicide vest. el-Sisi reported that three men and a woman have been arrested in connection with the attack; two others are being sought. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
On Palm Sunday, 9 April 2017, twin suicide bombings took place at St. George's Church in the northern Egyptian city of Tanta on the Nile delta, and Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, the principal church in Alexandria, seat of the Coptic papacy. At least 375 people were reported killed and 789 injured. The attacks were carried out by a security detachment of ISIS.
On 26 May 2017, masked gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying Copts from Maghagha in Egypt's Minya Governorate to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor, killing at least 33 people and injuring 22 others.
On 29 December 2017, in Helwan, Cairo, Egypt, a gunman opened fire at the Coptic Orthodox Church of Saint Menas and a nearby shop owned by a Coptic man, killing ten citizens and a police officer and injuring around ten people. He was wounded by police and arrested. Investigators said he had carried out several attacks in the last year. Later, Amaq News Agency described that terrorist attack was carried out by a person belonging to the Islamic State group.
The Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ is a Coptic Orthodox cathedral in the as-yet-unnamed New Administrative Capital, Egypt, some 45 km east of Cairo. It was commissioned by the President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and inaugurated on 6 January 2019 by President el-Sisi and the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria Tawadros II. It is the largest church in the Middle East, and the largest Oriental Orthodox church in the world by area.
On 2 November 2018, masked gunmen opened fire on a group of Egyptian Christians travelling by bus through Minya. There was a convoy of three vehicles and two of them managed to escape. The vehicles were carrying Copts traveling from Sohag Governorate and Minya Governorate in Egypt to the Monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor. At least 7 people from Minya were killed while 12 others were injured. A similar attack near the same place had happened in 2017.