Copts demonstrate for a secular state

More than 2,000 Copts demonstrated in front of the Egyptian state TV building in Cairo on Sunday for the transformation of Egypt into a secular state. The demonstrators carried signs with photographs of members of the Christian minority who had been killed by security forces and their thugs during the protests against the Mubarak regime, reported the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) on Monday in Göttingen.

"We want the same rights for all citizens," stated demonstrators, as they called for changes in the constitution. Currently, Article 2 of the constitution stipulates that Islam is the national religion and Sharia law is the main foundation of jurisprudence in Egypt. "In recent weeks we have been fighting to make Egypt a secular country that does not tell its citizens what religion to practice," said a Copt.

Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Great Imam of the Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, warned emphatically against changing Article 2 just last Wednesday: "This article is one of the constants of this state and any attempt to change it could lead to religious riots." The Al-Azhar mosque and the associated university of the same name are known as the main Sunni institutions in Egypt. After Pope Benedict XVI publicly expressed his concern over the situation of the Copts in January 2011, Al-Azhar broke off communications with the Vatican until further notice. Up to that point they had been meeting twice a year for inter-religious dialog.

An 8-member committee has been tasked with drawing up proposals for changes to the Egyptian constitution. The appointment of retired judge Tareq al-Bishri as chair of the council has been criticized in a joint declaration by 15 Egyptian human rights organizations. While they confirmed the legal expertise of the 77-year-old jurist, they characterized him as a champion of a "political Islam" whose ideology runs counter to the conception of a secular state. In the past Bishri has repeatedly criticized the Coptic church as a "state within the state" and referred to Christians as non-citizens. The human rights organizations appealed to the Egyptian people to "defend the objectives of the revolution" in order to lay the foundation for "social peace and national unity" with a secular constitution.

The constitutional committee also includes Maher Samy Youssef, a Copt and judge at the constitutional court, and attorney Sobhy Saleh, a popular member of the Muslim Brotherhood.