The House of Representatives held a full-day session on Sunday in which MPs expressed their solidarity with Coptic families forced to leave their homes in North Sinai after receiving threats from militant jihadists. Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Omar Marwan told MPs that churches in Ismailia had received dozens of Coptic families fleeing the North Sinai town of Arish following a series of attacks targeting Christians, including the murder of three people. Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said the targeting of Copts in North Sinai aimed to undermine national unity. “When this gang of blood thirsty terrorists targets Copts they are targeting all Egyptians,” said Abdel-Aal. “All Egyptians — Christian and Muslim — must stand together and maintain national unity. We cannot let this gang drive a wedge between us.” Abdel-Aal said he had spoken with cabinet ministers, the governor of Ismailia and heads of Suez Canal towns to ensure the government was doing everything possible to assist the displaced Christian families. Marwan reported that Prime Minister Sherif Ismail had instructed the governors of Ismailia, Port Said, Suez and North Sinai to provide all necessary help, including accommodation, to the families, and had spoken with Pope Tawadros II “to assure him that the government is sparing no effort in helping Christians”. “The 118 Christian families who have left North Sinai have been re-housed in four governorates — 96 families in Ismailia, eight in Qalioubiya, 12 families in Assiut and two in Cairo,” Marwan told MPs. The Ministry of Social Solidarity has provided the families with accommodation in new housing units and students were being admitted to schools and universities in the governorates in which they had relocated. Meanwhile, parliament's Human Rights Committee sent a delegation to meet with fleeing Christian families. MP Margaret Azer issued a statement saying the delegation had visited Ismailia and Port Said on Sunday to review the situation of families who had fled North Sinai because of attacks by the terrorist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. “We made sure that Coptic students were able to join schools in Ismailia and Port Said and that families sheltering in the Anglican Church in Ismailia would have access to housing units,” said Azer. Azer said she met with Minister of Higher Education Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar to help Coptic university students who fled North Sinai be admitted to the Suez Canal University in Ismailia and Port Said. The Anglican Church in Ismailia has provided shelter for 150 people fleeing Arish, church official Nabil Shukrallah Basta said on Saturday. He added that more Christian families were expected to arrive on Sunday and Monday. The Coptic Orthodox Church issued a statement on Friday condemning “repeated terrorist attacks targeting Egyptian Christians in North Sinai”. MP Mona Mounir met with the ministers of housing and social solidarity to review the services being made available to the 38 Coptic families who have arrived in Ismailia and will remain there until they are able to return to Arish. Mounir also met with the governor of Ismailia on Saturday. “The governor assured us that the families will receive all the support and care they need,” said Mounir. Independent MP Abdel-Rehim Ali told the press that the wave of attacks against Coptic Christians in North Sinai was a continuation of a strategy adopted by “the terrorist organisation the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1970s”. “Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis operates as the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its attacks against Copts in North Sinai seek to pressure the government into opening negotiations towards some form of reconciliation,” said Ali. “The Muslim Brotherhood and its associated takfiri groups have always used Copts and foreign tourists as soft targets in pursuit of their goals. They have issued fatwas against Coptic Christians, robbed from their homes and businesses, attacked their villages and torched their churches,” said Ali. “In the 1990s the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist groups launched hundreds of attacks against Copts in Upper Egypt in an attempt to embarrass the regime of Hosni Mubarak and compel it to open negotiations with them on Islamic Sharia and Islamist prisoners.” “Parliament must offer all possible support to the army in its campaign against jihadist and takfiri groups in Sinai and the government must be ready to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent Copts from becoming targets for these groups.” The Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly denied it has links to armed groups. “Our flaws are many, but violence is not one,” Muslim Brotherhood official Gehad Al-Haddad claimed in an op-ed published in The New York Times last week. In a quick response Egypt's Dar Al-Iftaa (the Islamic authority charged with issuing religious edicts) issued a statement on 25 February accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of spreading lies as part of a systematic campaign, aided by Western human rights organisations and media, to polish its image. According to Dar Al-Iftaa, the Muslim Brotherhood hides its terrorist nature by publicly disowning those who use violence though the group itself espouses a militant jihadist ideology which has spawned many of the world's most notorious terrorists. Sayed Abdel-Aal, head of the Tagammu Party, appealed on Saturday for “all Egyptians — Christians and Muslims — to stand firm against Islamist terrorism and the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood”. “In the face of the Egyptian army's campaign against it the Brotherhood has resorted to terrorist attacks against Copts in a desperate attempt to intimidate the government,” said Abdel-Aal. “But Egyptians will not allow the unholy alliance between the Brotherhood and takfiri movements to drive a wedge between them.” MP Mustafa Bakri points out that though many families from Arish and Rafah have been evacuated in recent years most of them have been able to return. A video released by the Islamic State-affiliated Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis last week called for attacks on Christians across the country. Two days after the video was released two Christians were murdered in Arish by unknown assailants, bringing the number of Christians killed in North Sinai in the last month to seven. Christians are estimated to make up 10 per cent of Egypt's population.
