(Fixes typo in para four)
* Four Christians killed by mob near Luxor
* Ouster of Islamist president unleashes violence
* Rights groups say police failing to act
CAIRO, July 23 (Reuters) – Security forces must do more to
protect Egypt’s Christian minority in the turmoil following the
military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, rights
groups said on Tuesday, citing the mob killing of four near the
southern city of Luxor.
Coptic Christians account for about a tenth of Egypt’s 84
million people. They have suffered discrimination for decades,
but communal tensions and attacks rose sharply under Mursi, who
was elected president a year ago following the fall of strongman
Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
The army deposed Mursi on July 3, unleashing violent street
clashes and exposing deep fissures in the Arab world’s most
populous nation.
Two days later, a mob beat to death four Christians and
destroyed at least 24 Christian-owned properties after a Muslim
was found dead in the village of Naga Hassan, near Luxor, New
York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
Amnesty International said security forces in the area
“stood by and failed to intervene” while more than 100 Christian
homes were attacked, scores of them looted or torched.
Both rights groups quoted witnesses as saying they had
begged police and local officials to intervene, but to no avail.
Amnesty said Luxor prosecutors were investigating the attack
and at least 18 men had been detained. A military spokesman was
not contactable for comment on the criticism of the security
forces. Tuesday was a public holiday in Egypt.
HRW said it had registered at least six attacks on
Christians across Egypt since the ouster of Mursi, the country’s
first democratically-elected president.
Many Christians feared the ascendance to power of Mursi and
his Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. When he was ousted, Coptic Pope
Tawadros II gave his public backing, standing with other leaders
beside armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he announced
Mursi’s removal.
HRW said that in only one of the attacks against Christians
had police intervened effectively.
“The Egyptian government should make ending sectarian
violence a priority, or risk letting this deadly problem spiral
out of control,” said Nadim Houry, acting Middle East director
at HRW.
Amnesty said security forces in Hagba Nassan had evacuated
some women and children trapped inside a house surrounded by an
angry mob, but left six men behind, “apparently following
demands from the crowd that the men remain.” Four of the men
were later stabbed or beaten to death, it said.
“The attack went on for 18 hours,” Amnesty quoted local
priest, Father Barsilious, as saying. “And there was not a door
on which I did not knock: police, army, local leaders, the
Central Security Forces, the Governate. Nothing was done.”
While in power, Mursi’s government said it was committed to
protecting minorities, but the Muslim Brotherhood strongly
criticised the Coptic pope for backing the president’s overthrow
and anti-Christian sentiment has been on display at pro-Mursi
rallies. The army-backed authorities who replaced him have said
little about attacks on Christians.
Site of Egypt’s greatest Pharaonic temples, Luxor made
headlines in 1997, when Islamist militants killed 62 people, 58
of them foreign tourists in a temple in the Valley of the
Queens.
(Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Paul Taylor)
