CAIRO: Qena Governor Magdy Ayoub announced Tuesday that the families of those killed and wounded in a drive-by shooting outside a church in Nagaa Hammadi on Coptic Christmas Eve will receive instant compensation, according to the state-run egynews.net. The families of the seven men killed on Jan. 6 in the Upper Egyptian province - six Copts and one Muslim guard - will each receive LE 25,000, while the nine wounded in the attack will be given LE 10,000 each. In related news, Qena's State Security Emergency Court has set a date of Feb. 13 to begin trial proceedings for the three suspects in the case, Qershi Aboul Hagag, Mohamed Ahmad Hassan El-Kamuni and Hindawi Mohamed Sayed, who turned themselves in two days after committing the crime after being surrounded by police in a sugar cane field. The suspects are charged with murder in the first degree, the use of force and threatening public safety. The killings have triggered an angry backlash from Egyptian Copts at home and members of the Coptic Diaspora, who organized demonstrations in Cairo, New York, London and Greece to protest what they believe to be growing discrimination against them. A statement by the Foreign Ministry insisted that the shootings were a purely internal matter and criticized certain members of the European Parliament for attempting to push a resolution on the incident. During a speech to mark Police Day on Sunday, President Hosni Mubarak chastized both Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church for the lack of an enlightened religious dialogue in Egypt, and added that he would not go easy on those who threatened the "unity of Egyptians. Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly in a TV appearance, however, insisted that Egypt does not have a sectarian problem. "We can't deny that extremism exists, and that there are extremists amongst both Christians and Muslims. But if you ask me whether there is a sectarian crisis? I'll tell you no, there isn't. These are ordinary crimes, committed not because of a sectarian crisis but for other reasons, he said. -Daily News Egypt.
