Dead: 24. Injured: at least 200. These are the official figures following the clashes between members of Egypt’s Coptic community and the army on Sunday evening. The Copts – Egypt’s Christian minority – clashed again with police and troops on Monday. “They’re always the victims,” says Dutch priest Jos Strengholt in Cairo. They are accused of being an “obstruction to Allah’s blessing on the country”.

“The riots are the talk of the Christians here,” says Mr Strengholt from Cairo. “They’re all really scared and angry. Their anger is directed at the army. Why doesn’t the army choose the people’s side, why has it taken up a position against the church? The state media say the Copts started it themselves.”

Mr Strengholt has lived and worked in Egypt for decades, first as a journalist and then as an Anglican cleric.

“I don’t know precisely what happened on Sunday evening. I know of a number of incidents, but the problem is - in which order did they occur? To put it bluntly – who started it?”

First shots
Mr Strengholt has heard a variety of stories: about how the army started it; about how Copts began throwing stones; about unknown gunmen firing the first shots; about troublemakers who wanted the protest to escalate.

That’s how it began: a demonstration by Copts outside the state television building in Cairo, in which many people were injured and some even killed. The protest was sparked by an attack last week on a Coptic church in the southern region of Aswan. The Copts accuse the local governor of too weak a response. He said it wasn’t an official church.

“The government did too little far too late, as is often the case here. Copts are sick of this happening time and again. Churches are so often attacked, Christians so often the victims,” explains Mr Strengholt.

Legislation
Under Egyptian legislation dating back to 1863, Christians need permission from the authorities before they can build a church, says Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s Mohammed Abdulrahman.“They even need permission for maintenance work. This makes for endless tensions.”

Before the revolution, new legislation was being prepared to do away with this inequality, says Mr Abdulrahman.“After the revolution, it was promised that the law would be swiftly enacted, but you hear nothing more about it now."

Mr Strengholt sees a pattern in the way disputes are settled: “Christians are not allowed to make a formal complaint or claim damages; Muslims promise to behave better. That’s supposed to calm things down, but the Copts are always the victims.”

Idolatry
The problems between the Copts – about 8 to 10 percent of Egypt’s population – and the Muslims mostly stem from religion, argues Mr Strengholt.

“Muslims think Christians are bad people, idolaters who believe in the Trinity. Their idolatry is said to be an obstruction to Allah’s blessing on the country. This is a major dynamic within society.”

Mr Abdulrahman disagrees, saying this is too black and white.

“Nowhere near all Egyptian Muslims think like this about the Copts. Only the real hardliners want to be rid of them.”

Some Copts are leaving Egypt because of the situation. Mr Strengholt thinks it’s mostly people from the richer part of the Coptic community who are emigrating to other countries, including the Netherlands. He thinks their departure is having a negative effect on the Coptic Church in Egypt and on the country as a whole.

Going against the majority
Mr Strengholt is worried about the position of Christians in Egypt:

“For a time after the revolution we cherished the hope that things were getting better. But the situation has only been getting worse. I suspect the army and the police have been significantly weakened by the revolution. They daren’t go against the Muslim majority in order to protect a minority.”

Mr Abdulrahman can’t confirm whether the army and police have become more anti-Coptic. He does think, however, that the Salafis – a fanatical Muslim group – appear to be becoming stronger and that army and police mirror the society they serve.

The European Union has called on Egypt's interim government to protect citizens, regardless of their religion. Freedom of expression and religion, it argues, are “absolutely fundamental values”. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal says he is “very concerned” about the situation.

(mw/tf)