Tuesday, January 04, 2011

ACL calls on government to demand better protection of Coptic Christians

In the light of yet another horrific attack against Coptic Christians, ACL has called on the Australian Government to demand the Egyptian government provide them better protection.

“No minority in any country should be subjected to the indiscriminate terrorism that Islamic terrorists are repeatedly committing against Egypt’s Christian community and particularly the Copts,” said Jim Wallace, ACL’s Managing Director.

“This is simply another incident in a long line of suffering for these people, by attackers deliberately targeting them for their faith,” said Mr Wallace. 

“Women, children and old men, all maimed or killed for no other reason than they are Christians in a minority position in a Muslim country that wants to masquerade as a major world player.”

“Failing to protect a minority group of its citizens against this attack is just the worst manifestation of a government that seems to encourage the very extremists it now asks the country to unite against, by its failure to accord Christians equal rights to build churches and otherwise practice their religion,” said Mr Wallace.

“Our Government must protest this strongly, it has gone on too long, too deliberately and with too many innocent victims and too little effort by the Egyptian government to treat Copts and other Christians in accord with UN protocols,” he said. 

SIC: CT/AUS