At least 39 Copts have died violent deaths because of their faith since January 2011

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is deeply concerned about the continuing violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt. After the shooting death of yet another Copt at a demonstration in Cairo on Tuesday, head of the STP's Africa section Ulrich Delius made the following statement on Wednesday in Göttingen: "The Copts are still hoping that after the fall of the Mubarak regime there will be an end to the continued attacks, but almost every week sees more Copts dying in violence due to their beliefs. If the new Egyptian government does not want to lose credibility with the Christians, it must take their fears and their difficulties more seriously." Since the beginning of January 2011 at least 39 Copts in Egypt have been killed. Three churches have been burnt down.

The latest escalation of the violence can be traced to a relationship between a Muslim and a Copt in a suburb south of Cairo. At first the two families seemed to have made peace, but then the Muslim family demanded an honor killing. When the father refused to kill the young couple to restore the Muslim woman's honor, one of the cousins killed the father. In retaliation, a brother of the woman killed the cousin. The conflict escalated to the point that 4000 Muslims attacked the Coptic community of Soul Atfif on the evening of March 4, burning down the church and a number of houses and driving out the inhabitants. Some 1300 young Copts then held a demonstration in front of the Egyptian State TV building in Cairo last Monday. Even the prime minister, who visited the demonstrations, was unable to calm the protestors. In the end, one of the demonstrators was killed in a fight with motorists.

"The massacre of 24 Christians in Alexandria on New Year's Eve unfortunately shocked only a portion of the Muslim community into showing solidarity with the Christians," reported Delius. Barely one month later, on January 30, two families with eleven members were murdered in the province of Minya. Two Coptic churches on the Sinai peninsula were burnt down. On the weekend of February 19 and 20, Father David Boutros was stabbed to death in his apartment near the city of Asyut in Upper Egypt. At the same time Egyptian security forces shot another Father in the St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natrun. The cleric died after soldiers tore down a protective wall that the monks had erected to shield the monastery from attacks. And on February 25 a young Copt was stabbed to death near the city of Sohag while trying to protect his sister from harassment by a group of young Muslims.