Country: Egypt

Group: Copt

Date: 4/13/21

Team: Johanna McCombs (lead), Rayna Castillo, Hannah Goldman

Content Warning: violence, forced conversion

Approximate Time Period: 1800-1882, 1950-present

The sources are reliable and consistent, showing the Copts were forced away within Egypt (data quality = 3 of 3).

Records show documented cases of forced emigration as early as the sixth century, when Copts fled to Sudan to escape persecution in Egypt (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). Currently, Copts in Egypt are the largest minority group numbering between 5 and 7 million (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). The majority of Copts are working class labourers or peasants but there are some in the upper and middle class. There are Copts in all registered  political parties (Minority Rights Group International, 2018).

Since the 19th century the Muslim majority prosecuted the Copts by burning churches, destroying books and imprisoning elders (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). By 1882 when the British took over Egypt, Copts made up only 10 percent of the population. Since the 1950s, the Egyptian state forced Copts to follow the rules of Islamic Sharia, that included paying a heavy tax, wearing different clothes and prohibitions from building places of worship. As a result, many Copts learned Arabic and eventually converted to Islam. More recently, and in the last decade in particular, anti-Christian violence has forced many Copts to emigrate out of Egypt (El-Fekki & Malsin, 2019; Minority Rights Group International, 2018). Since 2015, militant groups like the Islamic State have killed more than 140 Egyptian Christians–however, it is unclear how many of these were Copts (El-Fekki & Malsin, 2019). Due to this increase in targeted attacks, tens of thousands of Copts have emigrated out of Egypt since 2011 (El-Fekki & Malsin, 2019). Copts in Egypt face extreme violence and discrimination either by Muslim citizens, the state or ISIS (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). Many Copts are fleeing to Canada, the United States, Australia and Georgia, but these countries have limited space for millions of Copts to start new lives (Tadros, 2013).

The information above is from reliable sources, and there is ample information to show the experience of Copts in Egypt. Due to this the data quality is 3.

Sources

  1. Copts of Egypt. (2018). Minority Rights Group INternational . Retrieved April 6, 2021, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/copts/https://www.refworld.org/docid/5a0462157.html
  2. El-Fekki, A., & Malsin, J. (2019, April 26). Anti-Christian violence surges in Egypt, prompting an exodus. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 06, 2021, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-christian-violence-surges-in-egypt-prompting-an-exodus-11556290800
  3. Tadros, S. (2013). Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity (Vol. 638). Hoover Institution Press.