BEIRUT: Amnesty International on Wednesday called on the Egyptian authorities to release nine Coptic Christians who were detained for demanding the rebuilding of their church.
On January 22, about 70 people protested in the Ezbet Faragallah village in Minya governorate, south of Cairo, demanding that their church, which had burned down five years earlier, be rebuilt.
Nine village residents were arrested on January 30 and remain in custody pending investigations, according to an Egyptian rights organisation.
They face charges of “participating in an assembly that endangers public peace, and committing a terrorist act with the aim of disturbing public security”, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said in a statement earlier this month.
In Wednesday’s statement, Amnesty’s Philip Luther said: “The Egyptian authorities have for years ignored calls to rebuild the church, leaving around 800 Coptic Christians without a place to worship in their village.
“Now, in their shameful efforts to silence these calls, they are arbitrarily detaining villagers, criminalising peaceful protests, and slapping ludicrous charges on those who dare to speak out,” he added.
The Church of Saint Joseph and Abu Sefein was destroyed in a fire in 2016, which some have described as a “deliberate act”, according to EIPR. It was then officially demolished in July 2021.
The church submitted a request to rebuild, but received no response from the authorities.
“Instead of arresting a number of residents of the estate, official and security authorities should have responded promptly to their demands and issued a decision to rebuild the church,” EIPR had said.
Coptic Christians, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the Middle East, make up roughly 10 to 15 percent of Egypt’s predominantly Sunni Muslim population of 103 million.
The community has long complained of discrimination and underrepresentation.
They have also endured intermittent sectarian attacks, especially in remote and impoverished villages in southern Egypt.
Though a 2016 law on the construction and renovation of churches purported to solve long-standing difficulties in obtaining church building licenses, rights groups argue that it only entrenched religious discrimination.
According to EIPR, authorities have conditionally approved less than 40 percent of requests to build or repair churches since the law came into effect, with only 20 percent granted final approval.
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