Per the Washington Post, a car bomb has exploded outside a Christian Church, killing seven and wounding at least two dozen.
This development is deeply disturbing, as sectarian violence spreads from Iraq to other Middle Eastern countries.
There is a significant Christian population in Egypt, mostly Coptic Christians. Over the past several years there have been periodic attacks in Egypt against Christians carried out by Islamic fundamentalists.
From the WaPo story:
Christians are believed to make up about 10 percent of Egypt's mainly Muslim population of nearly 80 million people, and they have grown increasingly vocal in complaints about discrimination. There have been occasional attacks targeting Christians - most notably, in January 2009, seven Christians were killed in a drive-by shooting on a church in southern Egypt during celebrations for the Orthodox Coptic Christmas. The Saints Church in Alexandria targeting early Saturday also came under attack in April 2006, when a man with a knife stabbed worshippers.
At the same time, al-Qaida-linked militants have carried out a campaign of attacks against Christians in Iraq, killing 68 in a church siege in October and two more Christians in attacks in Baghdad on Thursday.
The impetus for this attack may be two Christian women who converted from Coptic Christians to Islam for the sake of divorce. In a country where divorce is more than frowned upon, it is all but impossible to do so as a Coptic Christian. Again, from the WaPo story:
The attacks in Iraq have an unusual connection to Egypt. Al-Qaida in Iraq says it is carrying out the campaign of anti-Christian attacks in the name of two Egyptian Christian women who reportedly converted to Islam in order to get divorces from their husbands. The Coptic Church forbids almost all divorce, meaning leaving the religion is sometimes the only option to escape an abusive or unhappy marriage.
The two women have since been secluded with Coptic Church authorities. Islamic hard-liners in Egypt have held frequent protests in past months, accusing the Church of imprisoning the women and forcing them to renounce Islam and return to Christianity.
Al-Qaida in Iraq says it is carrying out attacks on Christians in that country until Egyptian Church officials release the two women. The Church denies holding the women against their will.
If these women chose to convert in order to divorce, they would likely be endangered from Islamic fundamentalists. Going into hiding would be the smart thing to do.
I lived briefly in Egypt several years ago, and while Christians lived openly as such, my conversations with Christians led me to believe that it wasn't an easy existence. For instance, there was a distinct segregation going on, where Christians lived in separate buildings from the Muslim population. Because of my poor Arabic and the reluctance of Egyptians to speak of such matters openly, I wasn't able to get a full grasp on how this worked but my impression was that it was more for safety than for any other reason.
The bomb blast immediately unleashed a riot-like brawl between the angry Christians and a nearby mosque and rocks and bottles were thrown between the two factions. Still, this incident could have been much worse, as there were over a thousand worshipers in the church and the blast was timed to go off just as they were leaving services.
This doesn't bode well for those of us hoping that the sectarian violence unleashed by the war in Iraq would, at some point, be contained. This is certainly not how I'd hoped the New Year would begin.