Christians Under Attack

the governor's decision to demolish a church community center for the care of
the handicapped, located in the village of Deir Barsha, in Mallawi, Minya
Governorate.

Over 10,000 demonstrators, mainly from the village of Deir Barsha, were
joined by Copts from the neighboring village of Deir Heness. They marched to the
local council in Deir Barsha, holding slogans calling on the governor to resign
and chanted "Go, go after your master [Mubarak]" and "We stopped giving bribes,
so now you want to demolish the center."

After the demonstration was over, more than two hundred Copts refused to
leave the handicapped center and staged an open-ended sit-in until the governor
revokes his demolition order.

The 5-storey community center, which cost four million Egyptian pounds,
belongs to the Coptic diocese of Mallawi and serves children and youth with
special needs from 75 villages all over Minya governorate. It has a workshop to
teach them a suitable vocation, as well as a free day clinic.

The Governor wanted to demolish the services building in January 2011, but
could not because of the Coptic anger and demonstrations all over Egypt after
the massacre of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve, where a
bomb killed 25 Copts and injured nearly 100.

"Those children and youth, some of them cannot talk or do anything for
themselves," said to one demonstrator, "so why deprive them of the place which
can help them? It is utterly inhuman. This building was inaugurated by the
governor himself four years ago and all licenses and papers are fully correct.
Suddenly he wants to demolish it."

Coptic priest Father Antonious Bouchra, who is in charge of the community
center, met with the village council officials in an effort to find a solution.
He said that nearly 500 Coptic women demonstrated today in front of the council
and stormed the meeting, forcing the meeting to be reconvened in the afternoon
with the Mallawi city council director.

"The director pretended he had no idea about the demolition order and we felt
he was procrastinating," said Father Antonious, "but he promised to put the
matter to the governor and explain that the situation is urgent and explosive as
the Copts are enraged and insist on keeping the center open."

He added that nearly 100 handicapped youth and over 2000 Copts are still
staging their sit-in at the center since Monday, "fearing that the forces might
come and pull down the building. The villagers insist on protecting the place by
all means."

In another incident in the
series of continued provocation of the Copts, the Governor of Minya ordered the
demotion of ten newly built homes belonging to three Coptic families in the
village of Saeed Abdelmassih, 30 km from Minya, without any reason.

Villagers said that the Governor asked the families to pay one million pounds
as a voluntary contribution to the governorate in order not to pull down the
houses and when they refused they were asked to donate one-fifth of the land to
build a mosque near St. Demiana Church. The owners also denied his request as
all inhabitants of the village are Copts and no Muslims live there. This
prompted the governor to carry out the demolition of the homes on February 28 by
the police and army forces.

The new Freedom and Equality Party called on the Supreme Council of the Armed
Forces on February 28, to sack the governor of Minya and accused him and others
of causing sectarian strife in the governorate.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an NGO that monitors the
situation of religious freedoms in Egypt, published a two-year report from
January 2008 to January 2010. According to the report there have been at least
53 incidents of sectarian violence or tension against Copts by Muslims (about
two incidents a month) that have taken place in 17 of Egypt's 29 governorates,
with Minya coming on top with 21 incidents.

By Mary Abdelmassih