The U.S. Government has given over $50 billion to Islamic Egypt since 1975. Yet, Egypt’s ten million plus Christians are under increasing threat of extinction.

Persecution of Christians in Egypt is not a matter of great public concern in the United States and Europe. Most church leaders have little to say about the oppression, despite an abundance of evidence of murder, rape and forced conversion to Islam. Western politicians also exercise self-censorship. Democratic governments continue to support Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and millions of dollars flow into the country in the vague hope that this will stop the country’s drift towards becoming a radical Islamic state. The United States has given over $50 billion to Islamic Egypt since 1975. In both church and state, dialogue with Islamic dictatorships appears to take precedence over solidarity with persecuted Christians.

CSI Co-Sponsors Washington Conference

Last November , CSI co-sponsored the Second International Coptic Conference in Washington D.C., entitled Democracy in Egypt for Muslims and Christians. The conference chairman, the prominent Egyptian Christian Adley Abadir Youssef, charged that in ‘tourist paradise’ Egypt there is no religious freedom, and faith in Jesus Christ attracts discrimination and physical violence

Dr. John Eibner (CSI), Congressman Frank Wolf, Pastor Hans CSI  

In Egypt, Youssef said, it is not unusual for innocent people to be imprisoned and tortured for crimes they haven’t committed. He recalled a Muslim mob burning Christians alive in Suez as long ago as 1952. The mob threw the charred bodies into a Coptic church building.

Nun stabbed

Anti-Christian attitudes have not change much over the past 50 years. In October 2005 violence erupted in Alexandria after the Muslim Brotherhood distributed 20,000 copies of a DVD allegedly containing anti-Islamic statements by Copts. Three people were killed, seven churches were damaged and a nun was seriously injured in a knife attack. The Muslim Brotherhood’s acknowledged aim is Islamic world-revolution, and, according to Youssef, it lies behind all other extreme Islamist organizations. Islamic terrorism worldwide can be traced to this determined, fanatical group, he claimed. “Catastrophic terror has come over our world, and my home land is on the brink of an Egyptian Darfur.”

Muslim human rights campaigners

Egyptian Muslims also spoke at the conference, among them prominent intellectual Dr Saad al-Din Ibrahim, a tireless advocate for democracy, civil society and human rights in Egypt. The 65 year-old was thrown into prison in 2002, and the Ibn Khaldun research institute, of which he was co-founder, was closed. Dr Ibrahim was released following International protests. At considerable personal risk he spoke openly and uncompromisingly about the plight of Egypt’s Christians and the lack of democracy in his country.

Sadness and outrage

CSI President Rev. Hans Stückelberger lamented the silence and indifference of Christian leaders living in free and democratic lands. They have lost interest in their brothers and sisters in Egypt, who “follow their Lord to death”. Christian girls are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslims. “These abused young women are forbidden to raise their children in the Christian faith, and the children grow up hostile to their mothers and to the Christian community. My heart fills with sadness and outrage at the fate of Christians in Egypt.”

A step in the right direction

The historic Coptic conference was also broadcast in the throughout Arab world, thanks to several major Arab broadcasters. Coptic leaders from the conference also spoke at a hearing of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Capitol Hill. Congressman Phil English undertook to make future US aid to Egypt dependent on real progress in conditions for Egypt’s Christians – a long overdue step in the right direction.