Christians Under Attack

Television viewers in Uzbekistan looking for the familiar features of Father Christmas on their screens this year will be disappointed following an unofficial ban by the state broadcaster.

FOR millennia, the Sphinx guarding Cairo's famed pyramids has gazed upon the rise and fall of civilisations and the passage of countless visitors.

A campaign of intimidation by Islamists left most Christians in this southern Egyptian province too afraid to participate in last week’s referendum on an Islamist-drafted constitution they deeply oppose, residents say. The disenfranchisement is hiking Christians’ worries over their future under empowered Muslim conservatives.

The three-minute video, posted on an Islamist page, praises the "lion Murat K." and promises, "We will not rest until we have freed you from captivity."