Canadian bishops urge Egyptian government to respect Christians’ rights

October 17, 2011

Archbishop Brendan O’Brien of Kingston (Ontario), chairman of the Canadian bishops’ human rights committee, has called upon the Egyptian government to “undertake all necessary measures to ensure that Christians in Egypt are able to enjoy complete freedom of religion and to live in peace, that their security be respected, and that all forms of discrimination against them be ended.”

“We wish to share with you our deep concerns following the violent confrontation by Egyptian law enforcement agents against Coptic Christians that took place in Cairo on October 9, 2011,” Archbishop O’Brien said in a letter to Egypt’s ambassador to Canada. “There are accounts by witnesses, testimonies from hospitals, and video recordings of peaceful demonstrators being shot by soldiers or run over by armored military personnel carriers driving at speed. In an interview following these attacks, Cardinal Antonios Naguib, the Catholic Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, stated that these grave incidents are further to other acts of persecution and intolerance by extremist groups against Egyptian Christians.”

 

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Further information:

• Letter to the Ambassador of Egypt from Archbishop Brendan M. O'Brien (CCCB)
• Bishops urge European governments to defend Egypt’s Christians (CWN, 10/14)