CAIRO: A Coptic Christian march of a few hundred Egyptians arrived at the Egyptian parliament and a delegation is currently meeting with members of Parliament to discuss the forced eviction of several Coptic families in Alexandria, Mina Thabet, an executive member and spokesman of the Maspero Youth Union told Bikyamasr.com on Sunday. “We marched from Abdel Moneim Riad square to the parliament chanting against the forced migration of Coptic families and now a delegation from the march is meeting with Alexandrian MPs and others to present the case and see what they have to say,” Thabet told Bikyamasr.com via phone from inside the Egyptian Parliament. The case dates back a few months when a Coptic tailor residing in the al-Ameriya district, outside of Alexandria on the northern coast, had an alleged affair with a married Muslim woman. The news quickly spread in the small community of a few thousand and ended up with the man's family, along with a number of other Coptic Christian families being forced to leave the town and sell their property in order to “establish peace” once again. Several Coptic homes were raided in the town amidst the Muslim residents anger at the alleged affair, only to add oil to the flames when rumors surfaced that there is a sex tape of the man and the woman. No one could verify or confirm the alleged sex tape, but it seems widely believed to be true in the town. The town's elders gathered to decide how to contain the problem before it spiraled even more out of control. They met at the state security building in an “unofficial” session on February 1 to decide the fate of the man and his family and business and came to the decision that the man and his family had to leave the town and sell their belongings and property and never return. Six more Coptic families were ordered out of the town as well for their participation in the events, 4 of them from the same extended family. The news sparked widespread anger within the Coptic community, which is still recovering from the state TV massacre, dubbed the “Maspero massacre” that left 27 dead and hundreds injured when a Coptic march turned bloody and the military forces guarding the building used violence against the protesters. “This is a shameful stain on the face of this nation and a stain in the history of humanity that a man is forced to migrate because of his religion,” Thabet wrote earlier in a statement to the press. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/DKQhZ Tags: Christian, Coptic, featured, Maspero, Parliament Section: Egypt, Latest News, Religion
