By Robert Spencer
Sharia justice in Arab Spring Egypt. Islamo-Christian violence in Minya: life imprisonment for 12 Copts, eight Muslims acquitted,” from Asia News, May 22 (thanks to C. Cantoni):
Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) – An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Coptic Christians to life imprisonment and acquitted eight Muslims, in a trial heavily criticized by human rights activists and legal experts. The ruling came yesterday, at the end of a trial called to shed light on the sectarian violence last year in the province of Minya, in the southern part of the country, about 220 km from Cairo. Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher and expert on Egyptian law, emphasizes that “the acquittal of the eight Muslim defendants” shows that “the investigations started from the beginning by the attorney general are unfair and wrong” because there was “clear evidence of guilt against them, for having set fire to Christian properties.”The accused Christians were sentenced for inciting public disorder, possession of illegal weapons and the murder of two Muslims. The incident happened in April 2011 and has helped to exacerbate a situation of deep inter-religious tension in the area of Upper Egypt, which then continued in the following weeks (see AsiaNews 06/27/2011 Upper Egypt, violence against Christians on the rise. Eight houses burned).
The violence erupted when a Muslim minibus driver, angered by the presence of a speed bump outside a house owned by a wealthy Christian, got into a fight with the house’s security guards. Upon returning to his home village, the Muslim driver assembled a group of people to get revenge for the alleged wrong and the violence suffered….
Filed under: Anti-Christian, Backwards, Barbaric, Egypt, Islam Tagged: | anti-Christian, Egypt, Islam, sharia law, terrorism
