The ramifications from the massacre of Copts on 9 October are a long way from ending, writes Dina Ezzat This week the Coptic Patriarch Pope Shenouda, who has adopted conciliatory positions towards the state since his dramatic fallout with president Anwar El-Sadat in 1980 and subsequent exile to Wadi Al-Natroun, advised against plans by a group of Coptic activists to press their grievances -- not least the events leading up to the killing of 27 Copts on 9 October -- through the relevant international legal bodies. During a meeting on Sunday evening with the families of some of the victims of 9 October Pope Shenouda said such action would play into the hands of those who already denounce Copts as traitors. The statement of the Coptic patriarch came before a meeting that brought him together on Tuesday with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi in Tantawi's office. During the meeting, according to a source at the Coptic Cathedral, Tantawi promised to take all necessary measures to regulate the status of over 1,000 churches that have been either closed down or denied required construction licences. The source added that Tantawi also told Pope Shenouda that his stance against international litigation on the 9 October tragedy is in the interest of the nation and the peaceful relations between Muslims and Copts. This approach is not accepted by the families of the victims. According to Bishoi, one of the relatives who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly following the Sunday meeting, the families had hoped for the support of Pope Shenouda in the face of repeated attacks against Coptic Christians. "The only mistake made by the martyrs was to be Copts. Is it a crime to be a Copt today? Is it a crime to protest the demolition of churches away from any legal authority of the state?" asked Michael, another relative of the victims. For many -- relatives of the victims and activists -- Copts have little choice but to pursue action under the umbrella of international treaties to which Egypt is signatory prohibiting religious discrimination. "During the demonstration we were attacked by soldiers. Many people were killed. Yet the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] refuses to even consider that there was anything wrong with the actions of its soldiers. And it is the SCAF that is in charge of the investigations into the deaths of protesters. How are we supposed to accept that a party to the problem be placed in charge of finding out what really happened, especially when that party has already proclaimed the innocence of its soldiers?" asks Coptic activist Rami Kamal. Nor does he believe it would be better for the government to take charge of the investigation. "Prime Minister Essam Sharaf all but accused the Coptic demonstrators of being traitors when he suggested in a speech after the killings that foreign hands had manipulated the demonstrations," says Kamal. "If the government of Sharaf or the SCAF had acted in a timely manner to impose law and order when, only weeks after the 25 January Revolution, churches began to be attacked, things would not have deteriorated to this extent. But they chose to take no action. Now they want to appear concerned. I am sorry we don't believe them." "I have no direct involvement with what happened on 9 October but as a Copt with obvious concerns about my status in society I was following the developments," says Nadine, a Coptic lady in her late 30s. "I did not take part in any of the demonstrations but this does not mean that I am unaware of the injustice of the position of the state, the state in general, not just the SCAF." "Even if some of the demonstrators were throwing stones and chanting slogans against the army the soldiers' response was totally unacceptable." The injustices faced by Copts, says Nadine, include the labyrinthine regulations applied to the building of a church as opposed to the simple procedure of constructing a mosque, and the way in which Copts are excluded from senior posts in the administration and public sector to the extent that "we feel our rights of citizenship are not just compromised but severely violated." Nadine is not sure whether to support the position of Pope Shenouda. "The tolerant approach and continuing dialogue with state officials," pursued for decades, she points out, has done nothing to secure equal citizenship rights for Copts "It did not work with Mubarak despite the fact that Pope Shenouda went the extra mile and offered support for Gamal [to succeed his father] and it has not worked with the SCAF despite the restraint Pope Shenouda has shown in his reaction to the series of attacks against Copts and their churches". Nadine is "perplexed". "I don't want to end up leaving Egypt to go and live in the US or Australia as many others have. I don't want to feel that I am lesser citizen just because I was born Copt, and I don't feel comfortable appealing to an international body, even if it is the UN, and asking for help against the government because ultimately I would be asking for help against my country." Nadine still hopes the state will take "serious action to redress the injustices done to Copts". Coptic activist Marceliano Youssef holds out little hope that the state will act. "The authorities," he says, "have declined to take any action against the perpetrators of anti-Coptic acts" till now, despite the fact that activists have provided "plenty of recorded proof of their identity". "Today we have no recourse but international litigation. No one wanted things to reach this stage. We would have preferred justice to have been done through Egyptian courts." Kamal and Youssef are among a group of activists working with a Geneva-based Egyptian lawyer to initiate litigation. The move, they say, is not a tactic to pressure the government but the only means remaining to them to seek justice, which means not only punishing those responsible for the killings of 9 October and in previous anti-Coptic attacks, but also to take the kind of anti-discriminatory action necessary to prevent future attacks. Youssef Sidhom, the editor of Watani, a newspaper dedicated to Coptic affairs, disagrees. International litigation will not put a stop to anti-Coptic sentiments in Egypt but exacerbate them, he says. Sidhom, a vociferous critic of the extra- legal measures the authorities have used to defuse sectarian incidents in the past, is equally opposed to international litigation. The first, he says, undermines the legal rights of Copts while the second leaves them open to attack by those who seek to question their patriotism. Sidhom also disagrees with the way the Coptic Orthodox Church has handled the matter. Pope Shenouda has called on the SCAF to ease the legal burdens faced in building churches and to release demonstrators arrested in the wake of the 9 October protest but he has not asked for an apology for the families of the victims or demanded the punishment of the assailants. For Sidhom this is too reconciliatory an approach. "It is wrong in the sense that it turns Copts from citizens who should pursue their rights through the Egyptian legal system as every other citizen does to subjects of the Church." The Church, he argues, should refrain from speaking on behalf of every single Copt and restrict its pronouncements to the spiritual sphere. Meanwhile, he says, all citizens should insist on their legal rights "no matter how long it takes". Sidhom is willing to wait for the outcome of the fact-finding mission to decide the nature of the legal action that should be pursued but insists any action must be "within the Egyptian legal system". Sources in the fact-finding committee investigating the 9 October carnage whose report is due to be issued within days suggest that it will not directly accuse soldiers of killing demonstrators under orders. But some soldiers, says one source, clearly panicked, driving armoured vehicles through the crowds and killing demonstrators. The report is also likely to finger a mysterious "third party" for starting the state of panic by indiscriminate shooting at demonstrators and army alike. Political scientist Osama El-Ghazali Harb, a member of the board of the fact- finding committee set up by the Egyptian Council for Human Rights, argues that the report, while important, cannot be expected to solve problems that have been ongoing for decades. "Eliminating root causes is an uphill battle. It will involve filtering school curricula and the mass media of sectarian incitement, deliberate or otherwise," says Harb. Mistakes in handling attacks against Copts, and in containing prejudice against Christians, is only part of the mismanagement of the transitional phase, he argues. Harb says that he "can understand the motivation of those pursuing international litigation". "Having lost faith in the Egyptian legal system it is only natural to look elsewhere for redress". "But Copts," he argues, "should never give up on this country. It is theirs as much as it is anybody else's. They must continue to be politically engaged and refrain from going back to hide behind the walls of the Church." According to Kamal, this is precisely what Coptic activists are doing. "We keep an eye on the litigation process and another on the upcoming parliamentary elections. We are doing what we can to support civil and liberal candidates." On Tuesday Kamal and other activists began a tour of provincial governorates to lobby support for liberal candidates in the parliamentary elections. "What counts most is the future. We need to move beyond the current state of affairs to a situation in which all Egyptians will be truly equal and rights will not be decided on the basis of faith," says Nadine. "If we have an Islamist parliament and, by extension, an Islamist government, the dream of an Egypt for all Egyptians will be lost -- at least for a while."
