The head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, has urged Copts to vote for parliamentary candidates who can best serve the country's interests, disregarding their affiliations, state-run Al-Ahram newspaper website said. Shenouda III is currently undergoing medical checks in the US city of Cleveland, where he arrived last Wednesday for a two-week trip. The website quoted Shenouda's legal adviser, Maged Riyad, as saying that the pope advises Copts to actively take part in the polls. He denied that Shenouda gave any directives to vote for specific nominees, reiterating that the church sticks to the pope's ban on political campaigning inside churches. On Monday, Anba Moussa, the Coptic Church's youth bishop, released a statement that stressed that the church does not engage in politics but merely encourages citizens to vote as a national duty. On Sunday, the head of the Coptic Church's Ecclesiastical Council, Tharwat Basiley, said in press statements that some Copts had independently made lists of candidates they recommend and distributed them at churches, but denied the church's involvement. "Those people are campaigning for their own parties," he said, adding that Shenouda was clear when he urged Copts to go to the polls and demanded that they don't vote for Christians alone but also for sympathetic Muslim candidates. Shenouda III had called upon Copts to vote after a number decided to boycott the process to protest the death of at least 27 Copts in violence on 9 October outside the state TV building in Maspero. Copts United, a news website close to the church, complained on Monday that some Central Security agents tasked with guarding the polling station at Mohamed Farid school in Shubra al-Kheima are telling elderly and impressionable citizens to vote for Muslim Brotherhood candidates.
