CAIRO: President Hosni Mubarak granted the Marina Church on the North Coast ownership of a piece of land located nearby, settling its dispute with the Marsah Matrouh governorate, Priest Anglos Ishaq of Marina Church told Daily News Egypt. However, Ishaq added, the land is not officially owned by the church yet since a government committee is to set a meeting during which they will officially give the land to the church. "The meeting has not been scheduled yet, he said. The dispute between the church and the Marsah Matrouh governorate involved protests and clashes between some hundred Copts and security forces that resulted in injuries and the detainment of around 11 Coptic protestors. But, according to Ishaq, the situation is stable now. The original conflict was over a 5,000-square meter land that the church had bought five years ago and acquired a license to build a church on, but the Marsah Matrouh governorate revoked it. The protests began at 10 am last Tuesday, a Coptic eyewitness and one of the 11 detained by police told Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity in a previous interview, while in another interview with Ishaq, he said that the protest started a day before on the evening of Monday Aug. 13. Ishaq further explained that the clash began when Christians staying in Marina discovered that the tourism company that had bought their land was beginning construction. According to Ishaq, the church had paid 25 percent of the price of the land when, all of a sudden, they discovered that 4,000 square meters were re-sold by the Marsah Matrouh governorate to a tourism development company. The remaining 1,000 square meters were allocated to the Marina Shores protection unit. General Mohamed Al-Shahat, governor of Marsah Matrouh told Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that according to by-law No. 34 of 1979 regulating local administration, the governorate is the sole authority in charge of land within its cordon. On the other hand, Ishaq has told the Daily News Egypt that the church has bought the land from the Urban Communities Authority, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing. On the other hand, General Mohamed Al-Bashl, media spokesman at the Marsah Matrouh governorate, told Daily News Egypt in a previous interview, 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, Ishaq told Daily News Egypt that the governor of Marsah Matrouh has admitted that the land belongs to the church. On Sunday, Aug. 19 hundreds of Copts offered the Sunday prayers at Marina Church giving their full support to the church.
