Copts Conferences
After the Copt immigrants held the third conference in Zurich between 25 and 27 March, they intend to hold anther conferences in Montréal, Canada on April 7, and another one in Sydney, Australia on 12 May. Adli Abadeer, leader of the Coptic immigrants said during the Zurich conference that they intended to organize eight conferences around the world this year to pressure on the Egyptian government and expose persecution against Copts.
The Zurich conference was held under the title of "The Copts are caught up between the Wahabi Hammer and the Muslim Brotherhood Anvil." It was attended by AUC professor Said Eddin Ibrahim, about 40 Coptic immigrants and some Arab intellectuals critical of the attitude of Islamists.
Abadir, the Egyptian businessman resident in Switzerland, attacked the Egyptian regime accusing it of transfer Egypt into fanatic Wahabi thinking through the Saudi money.
The conference called upon the Egyptian government to activate the religious rights document which was signed last year in Cairo by Al Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi and Priest Emil Haddad, a representative of the Peace Ambassadors Organization. The document regards resorting to violence to confirm a religious viewpoint or forcing others to embrace it as a completely inadmissible matter .
Coptic immigrants who estimated with two millions are trying to unify their powers, although conflicts between them took place following the Washington conference last year after Michael Monir, head of US Copts Association, visited Egypt and met with Egyptians officials.
The Copts emigrants face attack from Egyptian newspapers which usually describes Copts emigrants as agents and receive money from the west.
From its side the Copts church try to separate itself from emigrants acts. Pope Shounda held a press conference in Aswan before a week of Zurich conference in the occasion of inaugurate a new church, he refused Emigrants restore to the UN or any foreign interference in Egyptians affairs because of Copts.
Abadir comment on the pope situation “The pope is into the cage he can’t say except that. We tried several times to solve the problem by the dialogue but the government ignored us”
The Copt-Muslim Brotherhood dialogue was a main issue in the discussion between Saad Eddin Ibarhim and the other participants. Ibrahim tried to persuade them of the necessity of such a dialogue. He explained that the Copts should not judge the Brothers before having a dialogue. He added: "the fear of political Islam is legitimate, but does not prevent dialogue. If I was talking with the Israelis why can you not talk with the Brotherhood? Accepting dialogue means accepting the humanity of both sides."
He added: "I have hope and confidence that if the dialogue begins in an atmosphere of freedom, the Islamists in our region will become democrats as was the case in Turkey with the Justice Party"
The response of the Coptic and Arab intellectual attendees was that dialogue with the Muslim Brothers would be a waste of time because the latter enter into dialogue under the "Tokia" principle which allows them to lie to achieve their motive of turning Egypt into a religious state, an objective which they are not willing to give up.
Abadir said: "The dialogue with the Brothers would be an argument, not a dialogue. We can't trust a group that consider deception a system."
He pointed out that Coptic problems in Egypt have been known since 1972 and since the Al-Oteifi committee's report following the Khanka sectarian incident. The report accused the government of seeking to keep the problems without solution.
The conference comes at a time when Copts United under the presidency of submitted a complaint to the UN Committee on Social and Economic Rights.
Zurich Conference is the third Coptic conference after the first one which determines the Copts demands on Instituting a total separation of religion and state through constitutional reforms, and the removal of emphasis on religion and its role in government institutions, emphasizing the secular nature of the State. Denouncing the Hamayoni Decree as unconstitutional in order to establish the equal rights of all Egyptians to build and maintain places of worship. Allocating a proportionate and just percentage (estimated between 10-15%) of government appointed positions to Copts, to guarantee appropriate participation…
Copts sent this demands to the Egyptian government. But they said that the government neglected their demand. So they decided in the second conference in Washington to resort to the United Nation. And they did before their third conference
Awad Shafik, United Copts lawyer and representative who submitted the complaint to the United Nations, clarified: "The main objective of the complaint is for the observation committee resulting from the international treaty for human right to study whether Egypt's internal law agrees with the treaty, and it wasn't in agreement, then there should be international cooperation to assistant the country to introduce suitable internal legislation."
He pointed out that the Copts are indicate their compliane by showing some legislations that discriminate against Copts in the Egyptian law, for example the Hamayouni law that back to the Ottoman rule and obliges the Copts to get a license from the president to build a new church . And Al Ezabi's condition in 1938 for construction of the churches that included a digit of the religion in the ID paper, which is disagrees with judgments and the international law principles.
