Scholar, in House testimony, describes ‘culture of impunity’ against Egypt’s Christians
May 22, 2015
Testifying before the US House of Representative’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom documented recent instances of violence against Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
These “attacks and blasphemy cases are hardly the first and will unfortunately not be the last unless the Egyptian regime begins to seriously address the root causes of Egypt’s endemic sectarian crisis,” Samuel Tadros said on May 20. “Failure by the Sisi regime to uphold the rule of law and protect the country’s Christians from attack bodes ill for the Middle East’s largest Christian community.”
“While the Egyptian regime believes that its resort to reconciliation sessions instead of punishing the attackers helps in restoring and maintaining order, the reality is the exact opposite,” he continued. “The lack of punishment has created a culture of impunity, which in turn has become a culture of encouragement. Fanatics have rightly concluded that attacking Copts, not only will go unpunished, but more importantly will result in the mob’s demands being met.”
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