الأخوان المسلمين يحاصرون كنيسة مار جرجس و الأنبا أنطونيوس بمحرم بك

طيب يا حاج ياويكا
طالما بتكلمنا بالعنكليزي هنردو عليك بالعنكليزي
شفتم المصيبة؟؟
الى كل من صوت لأيمن نور في الانتخابات الرئاسية يروح يراجع نفسه
http://au.news.yahoo.com/051022/19/wh0q.html
Sunday October 23, 01:16 AM


Deadly intercommunal riots in Alexandria
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) - The usually peaceful Egyptian city of Alexandria was reeling from riots that left three dead and pitted police and Muslims protesting a play they charge is offensive to Islam.

The clashes -- which also left some 60 wounded -- were some of the worst intercommunal violence Egypt has seen in years, underscoring the fragile religious balance of the Arab world's most populous country.

Some 5,000 Muslims had gathered Friday outside the Saint Girgis Coptic Orthodox church to protest against the recent DVD release of an amateur play produced by the city's Christian community.

Bludgeon-wielding riot police tried to contain the angry mob before lunging into the crowd and firing tear gas grenades. Witnesses also said police d rubber bullets.

The interior ministry said in a statement it responded to "radical elements in the crowd" but the opposition Ghad party candidate for the upcoming parliamentary polls said security provoked the protestors.

"The government is responsible for what happened. Some policemen incited the demonstrators and deliberately wound them up. Also, they used gas and rubber bullets instead of water cannons," Tamer Harfush told AFP.

The interior ministry said one man later died in hospital of wounds sustained during the clashes. Security sources speaking on condition of anonymity said two other demonstrators were killed when police opened on the crowd.

The interior ministry statement also said 53 people had been arrested.

The demonstrators had last week handed the church an ultimatum for a public apology by Coptic Pope Shenuda III that expired unheeded on Friday.

Entitled "I was blind and now I can see", the play tells the story of a Christian who converts to Islam and is disillusioned.

The play was first performed two years ago and it was not clear whether the Muslim demonstration had been organised by a specific group of was spontaneous.

"The play compares Islam and Christianity, Jesus and the Prophet Mohammed, presenting the first as a man who sacrificed his life and the second as more preoccupied with earthly pleasures," Harfush explained.

Ramzi Abd el-Nessim, from the Coptic patriarchate in Alexandria, did not comment on the content of the play but denied any attempt to provoke the country's Muslim majority by releasing the DVD on the market.

"The play was performed only once two years ago and we don't know who distributed the DVD nor how it was produced in the first place," he told AFP.

On Saturday, a large contingent of riot police was deployed and the main road in the Moharram Bek neighbourhood where the violence erupted was opened only to the city's trademark trams.

"There were thugs and looters who took advantage of the situation yesterday but today I will open my shop anyway, I hope calm will return to the neighbourhood," said Mahmud Abdelrazzek, who owns a wallpaper shop.

Alexandria, which lies 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Cairo, is the country's second largest city was once the symbol of cosmopolitan Egypt and religious diversity.

Egypt's Coptic Christians represent only 10 percent of the country's population of 73 million and have felt increasingly threatened by hardline Muslims.

The latest violence sets a tense backdrop to the November elections for Egypt's parliament, where Copts are very poorly represented.

On January 2, 2000, violent intercommunal clashes broke out in the small Upper Egypt village of Kosheh, leaving 19 Coptic Christians and one Muslim dead.

Abd el-Nessim said Pope Shenuda III cancelled an annual "national unity" iftar -- the meal that breaks the day-long fast of Muslims during the month of Ramadan -- he was supposed to share with Muslim clerics in Alexandria Saturday.

But in front of the church Saturday, Alexandria Governor Abdelsalam Mahgub played down the incident and told AFP that "the iftar was not cancelled but only postponed and would eventually be even bigger than originally planned."

بالذمة من اللي شفناه ، هل كلامه حقيقي؟؟ ايه قلة الأدب دي
هو كان عايز يفرق 15000 بني آدم بمدفع المية؟؟ مش هتكفيهم أي مية دول
ولا عايز يفرقهم بالكلمة الطيبة؟!!
مراسل كان هناك ، وقال لي يا ساويرس أعداد الأمن كانت غير كافية نهائي وكان فيه تخاذل من القيادات الأمنية في الرد على المتظاهرين
يعني الناس دي مكانتش ناقصة استثارة وكانوا جايين أصلا يدمروا ويحرقوا ويموتوا
الله ينتقم منهم