A Coptic community in Egypt’s Minya governorate, whose church was closed in July following protests by local Muslims, continues to be a target of mob attacks and hostility.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that, as the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha concluded, a series of four attacks struck Upper Egypt from August 22 to 25, 2018. In each of these incidents, security forces either delayed providing protection to Christians or attempted to instigate violence.
Christians coerced into an out-of-court settlement following an Islamist attack on a church building in Egypt recently saw the usual outcome – a closed church – a practice that has long oppressed Christians, according to Middle East observers.
Despite continued persecution from Muslim extremists, Christians in Egypt remain unwavering in their faith, compelling a 'multitude' to come to Christ, church leaders have revealed.
A special committee set up to review church registration applications legalised the status of 53 Egyptian churches and related buildings on 26 February, but thousands more still await registration.
After waiting more than two decades, churches in Egypt finally are allowed to rebuild their houses of worship, according to World Watch Monitor.
At least seven people were killed after suspected Islamic State terror group radicals attacked a bank and the Church of Saint George in El-Arish, Egypt. The militants were seen waving their black flags through the streets in celebration.
A Coptic Orthodox priest has been stabbed to death in Cairo, Egypt. The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK has decried what he said was the injustice surrounding the crime.
Extreme Muslim groups, with the assistance of Egyptian police, are carrying out a systematic strategy of kidnapping Coptic Christian young women, according to a report by World Watch Monitor.
International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on September 14, a Muslim mob in the village of Tawa in Minya attacked the local Coptic Christian community. Homes, businesses, and cars were destroyed and three Copts suffered minor injuries. These attacks were in retaliation against a Facebook post which was widely shared among Christians. The author, a 22-year-old Christian resident of Tawa named Bassem, had written the post in May following the deadly attack by Islamic extremists against a caravan of Coptic Christians traveling to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor.
Authorities have closed a church that serves three villages in Upper Egypt on the pretext that area Muslims object to it – one of at least 15 Christian worship sites shuttered in the bishopric of Minya, sources said.
One of the survivors of the massacre of 29 Egyptian Christians in Minya in May said that the Islamic State extremists forced the women off the bus and ordered them to renounce their faith in Christ, but the Copts refused.
Egyptian churches on Thursday suspended pilgrimages, holidays and conferences for the remainder of July and August after authorities warned them about possible attacks by Islamic militants.
At least 44 people were killed in bomb attacks on the symbolic cathedral seat of the Coptic Pope and another church on Palm Sunday, prompting anger and fear among Christians and troop deployments across Egypt.
Hundreds of Christians in Egypt's North Sinai province fled the area Friday after the Islamic State terror group killed seven Christians in just three weeks.
A bombing at a Coptic cathedral in Egypt has killed at least 25 people and wounded 49 others during Sunday mass.