Community “Justice” Expels Copts from their homes

Community “Justice” Expels Copts from their homes

 

New research finds Egypt government negligent in curbing “tolerated” practice

 

By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service (jeremyreynalds@gmail.com)  

 

CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS. JUNE 18)  Forgive Emad Youssef if he and his extended family felt quite confused. The crowd welcoming them back to the village had only a few days earlier demanded they leave.

 

“They said this is the first time something like this has happened in our village,” he told private satellite channel, OnTV  “and that, Inshallah, it won't happen again.”

 

According to a story by Jayson Casper for World Watch Monitor (WWM), yet it happens frequently in Egypt - at least 23 times in the last four years, according to new research released by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). 

 

Whose Customs? - a 78-page report by EIPR - points out that the period from 2011-2014 saw 45 instances in which sectarian strife was settled, in different ways, outside the law through “Customary Reconciliation Sessions” (CRS).

 

In principle, WWM reported, concept, CRS is community-based conflict resolution, long established in Egyptian tradition. 

 

If two residents have a dispute, solving it through the judicial system is long and costly. Instead, “wise men” of the village will hear both sides and issue a binding ruling. Religious leaders are often involved.

 

If the dispute is violent, CRS is a method to calm tensions and prevent escalation. Police are usually present to enforce security.

 

But in the case of Youssef and his relatives, all Coptic Christians, the CRS took place because police did not do their job in the first place.

 

“'This (the forced ‘relocation’) happened while the police were in the village, and they did nothing to stop them” - a local Copt, choosing anonymity, stressed.

 

Emad's brother Ayman is a migrant worker in Jordan, accused of sharing pictures deemed insulting of Muhammad on Facebook via his cell phone. Ayman claims he is innocent. 

 

Nevertheless, WWM said, on May 27 a mob gathered in his home village back in Egypt, attacking the houses and fields of his family and their Coptic neighbors. The village of Kafr Darwish, about two-thirds Muslim, is located in Beni Suef, 70 miles south of Cairo.

 

Reports say that some local Muslim neighbors tried to defend the family, but the mayor was not able to control the situation. 

 

Officials and village leaders conducted a CRS, and issued a verdict placating the mob. In Ayman's absence his family was punished, resulting in the expulsion of 18 individuals, including Ayman's mother and his 71-year-old father.

 

The displaced told of their ordeal as they were “traveling from one town to another and not finding a place to accommodate us.”

 

In this one instance, five families of 18 members had to contend with living in one room. “They expelled us while we have done nothing, we are struggling to provide for ourselves,'” they said before their return.

 

WWM said media are often inattentive to Upper Egyptian issues, but in this case the outcry was immediate. 

 

Popular broadcaster Ibrahim Eissa declared, “How is that we have an enlightened president but a Salafi (ultraconservative Muslim) state? We don't have the courage to say: These are their homes and their life is here. Whoever stands against them and the law will be judged by the law!”

 

A day before Eissa said this, the Beni Sweif state governor had tried to intervene, announcing the displaced families would return. This only resulted in further attacks in the village. But the following day control was established. The governor convened a meeting in the village, with high profile political, religious, and security figures - and over 2,000 residents.

 

According to Mideast Christian News (MCN), the governor announced that the law does not allow the displacement of any Egyptian from their home. He promised to restore the properties that had been damaged.

 

But Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the Coptic newspaper Watani (which helped first report the story) is not aware of even one Muslim arrested for the attacks. MCN reported that Christian villagers submitted the names of 20 individuals involved.

 

“I don't consider this a happy ending, it is not a healthy situation and the law is not enforced,” Sidhom told WWM.

 

Fanatics “may harm Christians,” he said, “but the greater harm is done to the sovereignty of the state.”

 

This incident is unique in that the state intervened to overturn the results of a CRS.  Howeeverm the lead author of the EIPR report, Ishak Ibrahim, stated that the non-prosecution of offenders is common. 

 

In the vast majority of cases studied, no arrests were made. In the few that were, the accused were released shortly thereafter. The reconciliation agreements often stipulated the relinquishing of legal procedures.

 

“If people reject the ruling it can result in more sectarian attacks,” said Ibrahim, “but accepting it helps the aggressors escape the consequences of their actions. We put responsibility on the government because it is the one tasked to protect citizens and their rights.”

 

Article 63 of the Egyptian constitution forbids the forced displacement of any citizen. Article 95 insists all judicial rulings must be personal, not collective. And while Article 185 of the penal code allows for a victim to waive prosecution in certain circumstances, these do not include looting, arson or intimidation.

 

But the waiver of prosecution has not applied to Christian aggressors.

 

Not all incidents begin as sectarian. In 29 per cent of the studied cases, community tension resulted from a romantic relationship between a Muslim and a Christian, and in 16 per cent conflict emerged from land and property disputes.

 

In each one where the Christian was at fault, WWM said, legal prosecution continued after CRS-stipulated penalties, often exorbitant. 

 

But when the Muslim is at fault, reconciliation and social peace are emphasized. Sometimes there are no penalties whatsoever; other times the church has opted for waiving them to keep the peace.

 

Bias against Christians is also apparent in disputes with religious origins. Thirty-one percent of cases have to do with the practice of Christian religious ritual, including attempted church construction and repair.

 

Only one case was resolved in their favor. 

 

“Relocated”

 

Even the “Martyrs” Church, established by a presidential decision to honor the 20 Egyptian Copts killed in Libya by the Islamic State (IS), had to be “physically relocated” following protests and a subsequent CRS.

 

Eight per cent of cases had to do with expressing opinions on religious matters. The majority involved simply “liking” a Facebook page deemed insulting to Islam, and resulted in expulsion of the offender from his village.

 

WWM previously reported on Gad Younan, a teacher from Minya arrested with some of his students for a video in which they made fun of IS. 

 

MCN has recently reported that judicial procedures resulted in his release on bail pending further trial, but that the CRS agreement continues to demand he not return home.

 

“Customary reconciliation sessions are said to stop sectarian tension, but our analysis shows that they only serve to ignore it,” said Amr Abdel Rahman, head of the civil liberties unit at EIPR.

 

Abdel Rahman explained that those who conduct CRS sessions often view them as above and apart from the law. This status is buttressed by the police presence that implicitly underwrites the process.

 

In a rare departure from Coptic non-criticism of the government, Bishop Aghathon of Minya accused local authorities of collusion with conservative Muslims in CRS. 

 

He told a Coptic satellite channel that in one incident in his diocese, the typical mob protest was instigated by security.

 

General Sayyid Nour el-Din, former director of security in Minya, defended the use of CRS. 

 

“It does not conflict with the law at all, it has to do with the prevention of bloody conflicts,” he told OnTV. “The security presence is there to protect the sessions, not to come up with their solution.”

 

Nour el-Din said security has to be especially vigilant as Islamist groups are looking for any excuse to explode the situation. Strong especially in the poorer southern governorates,;their presence coincides with the use of CRS following sectarian incidents.

 

EIPR reported 48 per cent of cases are from Upper Egypt, 33 per cent from Minya alone.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood officially condemned the forced displacement of Copts in Kafr Darwish, while blaming the church for tearing apart national unity through its support of the government.

 

This latter sentiment was emphasized by a former parliamentarian from al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, an Islamist group implicated in many attacks on Copts in Upper Egypt during the 1990s. 

 

“The church is part of Sisi's regime,” said Amr Abdel Rahim. “They have to wake up and realize they are playing with Coptic lives and leading them to a holocaust.”

 

WWM said Abdel Rahim's criticism makes no distinction between Islamist ideology and Muslim identity. He insists that “Muslims” are not against Copts, but if not, who does he think might conduct his so-called holocaust?

 

“Roots of the problem”

 

EIPR statistics indicated the use of one CRS per month during the interim rule of the military, when following the fall of Mubarak, a security vacuum existed and Islamist groups felt themselves in the ascendency. 

 

During Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood-led presidency the rate rose to 1.25 per month.

 

WWM said it declined under interim President Mansour and incumbent president Sisi following the removal of Morsi, but the practice continues all the same. 

 

EIPR noted six incidents, outside the scope of its report, in the first half of 2015 alone.

 

“From Mubarak to today, no regime has dealt with the roots of the problem,” said Ibrahim.

 

Sidhom tied CRS to an unreformed educational system that does not properly instill the values of citizenship.

 

Related is a weak state apparatus that submits to the pressure of militant action apart from the law.

 

But the EIPR report's main author Ibrahim emphasized he is not against CRS in principle.

 

“Anything that extinguishes sectarian tension is beneficial, as long as the process of law continues,” WWM said he told OnTV. 

 

“The problem is that it is a replacement for law, often compelled upon the weaker party, reflecting the local situation of power.”

 

But where power is balanced and tension is not high, Christians like Muslims avail themselves readily of a CRS, especially in view of a judicial system saddled with millions of new and pending cases and complaints per year.

 

“In 90 per cent of the cases, CRS is beneficial,” Fr. Yu'annis Anton of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Minya told WWM. “Relationships are reconciled and everyone takes his rights.”

 

WWM said Anton speaks from a long experience with CRSs, underlining their utility in non-sectarian cases. 

 

This is not the case of Kafr Darwish, he said, where a just rule of law ought to take precedence. 

 

EIPR noted that its 45 cases detail only CRS usage following sectarian clashes, not the practice itself.

 

Perhaps following in the footsteps of Jesus, Emad Youssef chooses to reflect positively.

 

“This trial was from God, who has used it to increase the love shown to us by Muslim neighbors,” he said.

 

“They have made reconciliation,” added the 71 year old father. “We have returned home, in goodness and peace.” 

 

Photo caption: Jeremy Reynalds.

 

About the writer: Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, www.joyjunction.org. He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in Los Angeles. His newest book is "From Destitute to Ph.D." Additional details on "From Destitute to Ph.D." are available at www.myhomelessjourney.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Elma. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@gmail.com. 

 

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