Country: Egypt
Group: Copt
Date Finalized: 4/6/2023
Team: Kelsey Dwyer (lead), Khulan Davaasuren, Natasha Chandra, Austyn Evans, Ariana Jackson
Content Warning: Ethnocide, lethal violence, murder
Approximate Time Period: 1880s – present
The Copts are the largest minority group in Egypt and they practice Christianity in a largely Arab region (Minority Rights Group, 2017. Islamic rulers have discriminated and persecuted Copts in Egypt on the basis of religion (cswpress, 2019). From the ninth century onwards, Muslim rulers destroyed Copt churches and burned their religious texts (Minority Rights Group, 2017). When the British colonized Egypt in 1882, they forced Copts to convert to Islam, reducing their population to one-tenth of what it was before (Minority Rights Group, 2017). Additionally, throughout Egyptian history Arabization of the government caused a gradual elimination of Coptic language (Eddin-Ibraham et. al, 1996). In the mid-1960s militant Islam increased, leading to the 1972 violent Islamic attacks where militant Islamic individuals destroyed Coptic churches, shops, and houses (Minority Rights Group, 2017). In 1981, the Arab government placed restrictions on the building of Coptic churches, which restricted the Copt’s freedom to worship and spread their religion (Minority Rights Group, 2017). Discrimination in the form of ethnocide against the Copts is ongoing. On December 11, 2016, ISIS bombed a Coptic church, killing 29 people and wounding many more; ISIS claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened to escalate a deadly campaign of assassinations against the Copts (Minority Rights Group, 2017). Following through with their threat, ISIS then bombed two Coptic churches on Palm Sunday in April 2017, killing more than 50 Copts and wounding hundreds, followed by another attack in May 2017 killing 29 Copts on a bus (Minority Rights Group, 2017). The data quality for this case was rated a 3/3 as there were many reliable sources suggesting the same discrimination, as well as admittance to ethnocide from the oppressors.
Sources
- cswpress. (2019, March 11). Long read: The history of religious persecution in Egypt. FoRB in Full. https://forbinfull.org/2019/03/11/long-read-the-history-of-religious-persecution-in-egypt/
- Eddin Ibraham et. al, S. (1996, January). The Copts of Egypt. Minority Rights Group International. https://minorityrights.org/publications/the-copts-of-egypt-january-1996/
- Minority Rights Group. (2017, October). Copts. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/copts/