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Egyptian fire brigade in no hurry to extinguish church fire

Muslim neighbors of the church helped extinguish the fire, but Christians generally receive negative special treatment from the authorities

By Henrik Due Jensen

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Mina Hanna was woken up by a loud knock on his door. A neighbor had something urgent to tell him: the church was on fire. It was three in the morning on August 20. Hanna and his younger brother Ibrahim Saher ran to their church, Mar Girgis Coptic Orthodox Church, in the village of Sharara in central Abu Qurqas, a town of about 60,000 inhabitants in the Minya province about 240 km south of Cairo.

Image top: From left: Bishop of Minya Macarious, Rev. Yassa Saad and Rev. Abdel Massih Obaid, both pastors at Mar Girgis Church in Sharara village. On August 20, the back rooms of the church burned down.

Image right: Burned books in Mar Girgis

When they got to the church, they saw that the back room of Mar Girgis was on fire and smoke was pouring out of the back door. Hanna called the fire brigade. He then called the priest, Pastor Abdel Massih Obaid, who quickly arrived at the church. The pastor also called the fire department. Over the next hour and a half, Hanna says, he and other members of the congregation organized a chain of buckets to put out the fire. No one was hurt, but the fire destroyed the back of the small church building and the items inside: the pastor's office, church records and other books, pews and other furniture. During the hour and a half, the fire brigade was called repeatedly.

At 5:30 am, Hanna says, a fire truck arrived. The fire had been out for an hour by then. He has a theory as to why it took 2.5 hours for the fire department to respond: "There is a hatred in the hearts of many Muslims for us. They see us as infidels," Hanna tells World Watch Monitor. "They wanted the church to burn. The majority of Muslims, especially in Upper Egypt, are fanatical and hate us." However, Hanna says that among those who helped throw buckets of water on the flames in Mar Girgis were the church's Muslim neighbors. Across the country, Muslims, who make up nine out of ten Egyptians, have helped Christian churches, businesses and homes that have been attacked, helping to fill the gaps left by a disengaged police and fire department. This passive approach to emergency calls is not the norm either. Christians in need often get help immediately. But complaints about police and fire department inaction have been a part of Christian life in Egypt for a long time. For many years, political watchdog groups have noted how the Egyptian bureaucracy tends to discriminate against Christians. In 1993, Human Rights Watch documented how the state refuses to issue or delays building permits to build or repair churches - the only regulation to survive since the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The president's signature is still required on building permits for churches, while the construction of mosques is locally, and only lightly, regulated.

In recent times, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous examples of police and fire department negligence following the military's response to large demonstrations in August 2013 organized by the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim crowds, already angry that the army had overthrown then-President Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, responded to the violent intervention in the demonstrations by looting and burning down numerous churches and Christian businesses across the country. "Security forces were mostly absent or failed to intervene even when made aware of ongoing attacks," the report said. "For weeks in advance, anyone and everyone could anticipate these attacks when Muslim Brotherhood members accused Coptic Christians of having a role in Morsi's fall, but authorities did virtually nothing to prevent it," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director, wrote in the report.

Source: World Watch Monitor