CAIRO, July 19: The evening Egypt’s army ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, Christian lawyer Peter Naggar celebrated on Tahrir Square with even greater joy than when autocrat Hosni Mubarak fell from power two years ago.
Naggar remains deeply relieved that a year of Islamist rule ended a fortnight ago and yet, as the initial excitement fades, many members of his ancient Christian minority fear Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood will not give up power so easily.
Neither is the Coptic Christian community under any illusion that the army’s installation of an interim government devoid of Islamists spells the end to its long-standing grievances, such as difficulties in getting state jobs, equality before the law and securing permits to build churches.
Still, Naggar is happy to see the back of the Brotherhood. “This is the real Egyptian revolution,” said Naggar, who had joined mass protests in Cairo on June 30 demanding that Mursi go. “The people stood up against Islamism. This is the end of political Islamism.”
Coptic Pope Tawadros II backed the military, standing with liberal and non-Brotherhood Muslim leaders next to armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he announced Mursi’s removal on July 3.
Communal tensions and attacks on Christians and churches rose sharply under Mursi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president. Many Copts, who make up about a tenth of Egypt’s 84 million people, left the country where their ancestors settled in the earliest years of Christianity – several centuries before the arrival of Islam.
Islamists are staging a vigil at a Cairo mosque and regular protests to demand Mursi’s reinstatement, and it is dawning on Christians that they could yet return to power when elections are held under a military plan to restore democracy.
Some might even resort to force, they fear. Islamists have killed at least five Copts since Mursi’s overthrow, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a rights group.
“It’s an improvement that Mursi is gone but I am still not entirely relaxed,” said Roman Gouda, visiting with a friend the Egypt’s biggest Cathedral in the Cairo district of Abbasiya.
“I am worried because the Brotherhood keep protesting,” said his friend Amir Habib.
Habib was one of hundreds of Christian youths at the gated cathedral in April when fighting broke out between Copts and Islamists, who threw petrol bombs and fired birdshot from neighbouring houses into the compound. The Interior Ministry blamed Christians for starting the trouble by torching cars.
Security is tight at the cathedral, which houses the Pope’s seat, theological institutes, tailors for religious vestments and a nuns’ home. Only one gate is open for the public, manned by security guards and policemen. Few worshippers come as many want to keep a low profile, a church official said.
During Mursi’s presidency, Pope Tawadros said he felt Christians were sidelined, ignored and neglected by the Brotherhood-led authorities. Copts were emigrating “because they fear the new regime”, he said. (AGENCIES)
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