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February 8, 2013

More Convictions for Egypt's Maspero Massacre—But Copts not Soldiers

So far, no military officers convicted for October 2011 incident that killed 28 Copts.

Melissa Steffan

It's been more than a year since a military-induced massacre in Cairo, Egypt, killed 28 people—mostly Coptic Christians. But the only people convicted thus far have been the Christians themselves.

Last week, a Cairo court sentenced Michael Farag and Michael Shaker to three years in jail, charging them with inciting violence, destroying military vehicles, and deliberately attacking soldiers. Farag and Shaker were among the more than 30 Coptic civilians arrested following the massacre, 12 of whom were given life sentences last May.

The news comes as the new leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros II, issued unusually public criticism of the government of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

The October 2011 massacre took place during a civil rights march where, according to video footage, military officers drove armored vehicles through crowds of demonstrators in front of the Maspero state television headquarters. Demonstrators claim they were attacked, but the military maintains that weapons stolen by Farag and Shaker were fired back at soldiers, causing panic.

CT previously reported the Maspero massacre, the "bloodiest day since Egypt’s uprising," and reported that a court convicted 12 Copts and acquitted 8 Muslims for their roles in May 2012. CT also interviewed a leader of the Maspero Youth Union in Cairo for a recent feature story on the fight for Egypt's future.

posted by Melissa Steffan | Comments (1)

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Let Egypt go, if they want to be Muslims, let them be, as Jesus would say "...if they don't want to listen to you, move on to someone who wants to listen to you". There are ten million Copts in Egypt and the U.S. could take them in. They are Christians and could really help this country instead of bringing in Muslims who send their 17 year old daughters to the Middle East to marry husbands the girls never met and to bring the men over here insuring the continuance of the "real" Middle East Islam. At least with these Copts who do the garbage picking up of the Egyptians, we would be bringing in Christians who would help discourage our secular christianity in this country and the Muslim Egyptians would have to do their own garbage picking up jobs instead of having the infidels do it as low class citizens of Egypt. At least in the U.S. the Copts would become first class citizens in the U.S.

Posted By: Original Anna | February 11, 2013 9:29 PM

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