Thousands of muslim demonstrators gathered in front of Cairo's Al Noor Mosque for the 19th protest that has sparked tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority. (File Photo)
At least five people were killed and more than 54 were injured in a sectarian clash in Cairo on Saturday over a Christian woman who had reportedly converted to Islam, hospital and security officials and Egyptian state television said early Sunday.
The names of the victim were not immediately available.
The 26-year-old woman, Camilia Shehata, the wife of priest Tadros Samaan, disappeared in July 2010 after reportedly converting to Islam. Islamists, charging that she was forcibly confined in a church, protested several times. On Friday, they protested in front of a Coptic cathedral, which was where the clashes occurred.
But Ms. Shehata has appeared in new picture published by Al-Ahram newspaper with Naguib Gebrael, of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organization. Mr. Gebrael, a lawyer, told Al Ahram that he would represent her in a court where a complaint was filed against her alleged forced confinement in a church.
Saturday’s clash between Muslims and Christians represents another challenge to Egypt’s military rulers. They are trying to restore law and order after President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down in a popular uprising in February.
Witnesses said the army and police deployed armored vehicles in the Imbaba suburb of Cairo after some 500 Islamist Salafists surrounded a Coptic Church, demanding those in the church hand over the woman to them.
The Salafists—conservative Islamists—and Christians exchanged gunfire and threw firebombs and stones at each other before the army and police arrived. Security forces fired tear gas to stop the clashes. The façade of the church was badly burned in the frascas.
Egypt state television put the death toll at five.
Mixed relationships among faiths are frowned upon in Egypt, where Christians make up about 10 percent of its 80 million people. Such relationships are sometimes the source of deadly clashes between the faiths, said The Associated Press.
If a Christian woman marries a Muslim, she is expelled from the church. A Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian man, according to state law.
Because divorce is banned under the Coptic Church, unless under extenuating circumstances, many women resort to conversion as a way to get out of a marriage.
Christians complain about unfair treatment, including rules they say make it easier to build a mosque than a church.
In 2010, Egypt saw more than its usual share of sectarian strife, and a rights group has said such clashes have been on the rise. Muslims and Christians had been brought together during the protests that ousted Mr. Mubarak.
The case of Ms. Shehata captivated attention last summer and has again become a source of tension.
Ultraconservative Muslims have held protests and appeared on talk shows demanding the return of Shehata to Islam. They accused the police of collaborating with the church by handing Ms. Shehata over to church authorities to reconvert her.
On Saturday, Shehata appeared on a Christian TV station broadcast from outside of Egypt in a teleconference with her husband to say she was still a Christian and had never converted.
She said the protests were an attack on the church.
“Let the protesters leave the Church alone and turn their attention to Egypt’s future,” she said.
Her whereabouts are unknown.
Ultraconservative Muslims have gained prominence in Egypt, becoming more assertive in trying to spread their version of an Islamic way of life.
(Dina Al-Shibeeb of Al Arabiya can be reached at: dina.ibrahim@mbc.net. Mustapha Ajbaili of Al Arabiya can be reached at: Mustapha.ajbaili@mbc.net)
source : alarabiya
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