by WorldTribune Staff, May 30, 2016
Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi said the Muslim men who attacked, stripped naked and paraded a 70-year-old Christian woman through the streets will face justice.
The woman was attacked in her village south of Cairo after rumors spread that her son had an affair with a Muslim woman.
“They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes,” said the woman, who requested anonymity. “I was just as my mother gave birth to me and was screaming and crying.”
The Muslim mob also burned down her house and six other houses during the attack on May 20 in the village of Karma in Minya province.
Sisi said on May 30 that such violence divided Egyptians and that “we are all one and the law must take its course.”
The woman’s son, who was alleged to have had the affair, fled the village with his wife and children the day before the attacks. The woman and her elderly husband had already appealed to police for help after receiving death threats but decided to stay in the village.
Bishop Makarios, the local Coptic leader, said it took two hours for police to respond to the violence by which time the woman had already been assaulted by the mob.
“No one did anything and the police took no pre-emptive or security measures in anticipation of the attacks,” he said in a television interview.
The woman is part of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, which makes up around 10 percent of the country’s 90 million people. Copts have long complained of discrimination by Egypt’s Muslim majority.
Egyptian law states that it is illegal for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man but it is not illegal for Christian woman to marry a Muslim man.
Egypt’s Sisi: Christian woman’s attackers will face justice added by World Tribune on
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