CAIRO: Statements by the Marsah Matrouh governorate contradicted claims by the Marina Church Priest Anglos Ishaq regarding a land dispute in the North Coast's Marina resort. Five-hundred Coptic protestors clashed with security forces on Tuesday when a tourism development company initiated construction and road works on a 5,000 square meter piece of land allegedly belonging to the church. General Mohamed Al-Bashl, media spokesman at the Marsah Matrouh governorate, told Daily News Egypt that everything the press attributed to Priest Ishaq regarding the land dispute was completely incorrect. Al-Bashl explained that the church was given 5,000 square meters for free on which it had already built a church and that the dispute is over another 5,000 square meter patch that the church has only requested from the governorate. But applying to buy more land doesn't mean that the Church owns it, said Al-Bashl. On the other hand, Priest Anglos Ishaq told Daily News Egypt that the governor of Marsah Matrouh has admitted that the land belongs to the church and that the issue was raised to President Hosni Mubarak himself. Ishaq, who spoke to Daily News Egypt while at the Ministry of Housing's land registration office, said that the Church had received a purchase approval for the second piece of land on Oct. 12, 2002 and that it had already paid 25 percent of its price. He added that all the registration procedures and military approvals were complete. "Then the governor of Marsah Matrouh suddenly ordered the construction of a road splitting the land in two: a 4,000 square meter part which he re-sold to a tourism development company, and a 1,000 square meter part allocated to the Marina Shores protection unit, said Ishaq. Ishaq says he filed five official objections during the past year and each time the police would detain a number of the church s youngsters and offend the ladies in the church. Ishaq said that the latest clash with security began on Monday Aug.13 and ended Tuesday night. He also claims that General Mostafa Al Abbad, deputy head of the Alamein governorate office, had arrived at the disputed location with security officials and announced that a sectarian clash between Muslims and Christians was taking place in Marina. "He urged the Bedouins living in the area to stand against the church, alleged Ishaq, claiming that Al Abbad then filed a complaint in Al Alamein police station after which he was summoned at noon on Monday. But Al Abbad told Daily News Egypt that he had no information about the issue and that he is not in charge of it because he was not there in Marina at the time the incident took place. Again, Ishaq disagrees, saying that Al Abbad arrived with security forces on Tuesday morning while they were praying in the church near the disputed land and gave orders to start paving a 20-meter road. The men and women who were praying inside the church immediately held a sit-in refusing the confiscation of their land, while around 300 police officers started attacking them, Ishaq added. He accused the chief officer of Al Hammam police station of intentionally offending and mistreating some of the church s workers as they tried to offer water to the protestors. The priest claims that he has enlisted MP Georgette Al-Qelliny, other Christian businessmen in Marina as well as Zakaria Azmy, chairman of the presidential council to help him.
