Cairo Riots Leave at Least 24 Dead as Copts Clash With Security Forces

By Zaid Sabah and Sara Forden - Oct 10, 2011 12:24 PM GMT+0700

Coptic Christian protesters clashed with security forces in Cairo yesterday, killing at least 24 people and injuring more than 200 as shooting broke out and cars were set on fire, according to news reports.

Several hundred Egyptian Christians protesting a recent attack on a church came under assault by people in plain clothes who fired pellets at them and pelted them with stones, according to the Associated Press. Some protesters may have snatched weapons from soldiers and turned them on the military, in addition to throwing rocks and bottles, the AP reported.

The death toll from the violence was at least 24, the AP reported, citing a health ministry official. Egypt’s military deployed more than 1,000 security forces and armored vehicles along the Nile where clashes began, AP said. Protests continued late into the night with the military imposing a curfew until 7 a.m. local time in central Cairo, Agence France-Presse reported.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said in a televised speech that the clashes were “unjustified violence” that “raised fear and concerns about the future of this homeland” and the country’s transition to democracy.

Protesters set military vehicles on fire as soldiers fired into the air to disperse the Coptic Christians, who were protesting the demolition of a church in Aswan, Egypt, last week, Al Jazeera reported. The church in southern Egypt was demolished Oct. 1, according to Shorouk News, the website of the Egyptian newspaper El-Shorouk.

Governor’s Removal

Protesters were demanding that the governor of Aswan be removed and the church rebuilt, according to Al Jazeera. Egyptian security forces arrested dozens of protesters near the state television building, according to state-run Middle East News Agency.

The demonstrations had started peacefully with a march and a sit down at the state television building in the center of the capital but degenerated when protesters came under attack by men in plainclothes who pelted them with stones, according to demonstrators cited by AP.

Security forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters, Al Jazeera said. Protests also broke out in four other provinces in Egypt, according to Al Arabiya television.

Coptic Christians are the largest religious minority in the Middle East and account for about 9 percent of Egypt’s population of more than 80 million people, according to The World Factbook of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Discrimination

Religious discrimination had been encouraged in Egypt by the government of former president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in a popular revolt earlier this year, according to a U.S. State Department report on religious freedom published last year.

Mubarak’s regime had failed to prosecute perpetrators of violence against Coptic Christians in a number of cases and failed to redress laws, particularly with respect to church construction and renovation, which discriminate against Christians, according to the State Department report.

"What is happening now is not clashes between Muslims and Christians but attempts to spark chaos and strife among the homeland sons," Prime Minister Sharaf wrote on his Facebook page. "I call upon Egyptians to not respond to the calls for strife."

Sharaf was in contact with military leaders and church officials, attempting to contain the crisis, MENA said.

Gunshots rang out at the scene outside the state television building, where lines of riot police with shields tried to hold back hundreds of Christian protesters chanting “This is our country,” as smoke filled the air from the burning vehicles, according to an AP report. Protesters also gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, according to Al Arabiya.

Libyan Snipers

In Libya, opposition forces engaged in a second day of street battles with troops loyal to Muammar Qaddafi in his hometown of Sirte.

Fighters attempted to dislodge snipers in the coastal city, the BBC reported today, citing the chairman of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil. The fighting continued a day after soldiers from Misrata gained control of some buildings surrounding Ouagadougou Hall, the complex that Qaddafi loyalists have been using as a base.

In Tunisia, police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who were attacking authorities with stones and batons, according to a report on Al Jazeera’s website. The protesters, who were aligned with conservative Islamic groups, had gathered at the main university in Tunis to protest against a ban on wearing the niqab, or full-face veil, as well as the closing of a mosque near the campus, Al Jazeera said.

Russia offered to host talks in Moscow between Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government and the opposition, after blocking a Western-backed United Nations resolution that threatened sanctions against Syria’s regime.

“Our main message is that all the problems which have accumulated in Syria over many years can’t be resolved through force or confrontation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said in an interview with state news service RIA Novosti released yesterday. “In our view there is no alternative to broad-based political dialogue.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Zaid Sabah Abd Alhamid in Washington at zalhamid@bloomberg.net; Sara Forden in Washington at sforden@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden in Dubai at barden@bloomberg.net.