Christians, Muslims fight after Egypt stabbings
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, April 15 (Reuters) - Police fired tear gas on Saturday to stop clashes in Alexandria between Muslims and Christians angered by the killing of an elderly Copt a day earlier by a Muslim, witnesses said.
Hundreds of Christians turned out for the funeral of the 67-year-old man. His assailant wounded five other people in the knife attack on worshippers in two churches.
Thirty people were wounded in Saturday's fighting, medical and police sources said. Rocks and sticks were used in the clashes, which the state news agency MENA said started after the funeral.
Two cars were torched, shop windows were smashed and police arrested 15 people, MENA said.
Tensions between Egypt's Christians and Muslims occasionally boil over into violence. In 1999, 22 people where killed in sectarian strife in the southern village of Kosheh.
An Interior Ministry source said the 25-year-old man who carried out Friday's attack said he was taking revenge for insults to the Prophet Mohammad, apparently a reference to cartoons of the Prophet published mainly in European newspapers.
The authorities said the attacker was mentally ill.
But Christian demonstrators in Alexandria said the authorities were trying to make excuses for what some Copts saw as increasing attacks on Christians.
"We want justice. Christ is the winner," they chanted as they marched through the city on Egypt's northern coast.
"Why can't we live in peace?" read a banner held by mourners at the funeral. "No to oppression", read another.
Three people died in Alexandria in clashes with the police in October during protests by Muslims over a church play which they said was offensive to Islam.
Coptic Christians comprise between 5 and 10 percent of Egypt's 73 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslim.
President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt would confront any attempts to harm national unity.
"Egypt is considered a model of national unity and religious tolerance," Mubarak said in comments published in state press. "The occurrence of an individual incident or problem cannot disturb the serenity and strength of this relationship between the two elements of the nation," he said.
Hundreds of Christians turned out for the funeral of the 67-year-old man. His assailant wounded five other people in the knife attack on worshippers in two churches.
Thirty people were wounded in Saturday's fighting, medical and police sources said. Rocks and sticks were used in the clashes, which the state news agency MENA said started after the funeral.
Two cars were torched, shop windows were smashed and police arrested 15 people, MENA said.
Tensions between Egypt's Christians and Muslims occasionally boil over into violence. In 1999, 22 people where killed in sectarian strife in the southern village of Kosheh.
An Interior Ministry source said the 25-year-old man who carried out Friday's attack said he was taking revenge for insults to the Prophet Mohammad, apparently a reference to cartoons of the Prophet published mainly in European newspapers.
The authorities said the attacker was mentally ill.
But Christian demonstrators in Alexandria said the authorities were trying to make excuses for what some Copts saw as increasing attacks on Christians.
"We want justice. Christ is the winner," they chanted as they marched through the city on Egypt's northern coast.
"Why can't we live in peace?" read a banner held by mourners at the funeral. "No to oppression", read another.
Three people died in Alexandria in clashes with the police in October during protests by Muslims over a church play which they said was offensive to Islam.
Coptic Christians comprise between 5 and 10 percent of Egypt's 73 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslim.
President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt would confront any attempts to harm national unity.
"Egypt is considered a model of national unity and religious tolerance," Mubarak said in comments published in state press. "The occurrence of an individual incident or problem cannot disturb the serenity and strength of this relationship between the two elements of the nation," he said.
posted by Marko at 4/15/2006 04:52:00 PM
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