Police have clashed with Coptic Christians in southern Egypt. Police used tear gas, when mourners attending the funerals of six Copts killed the night before smashed the windows of Muslim shopkeepers.

The six funerals were being held for the victims of a gun attack on the religious minority in the early hours of Thursday morning. A Muslim police officer was also killed in the shooting. The Coptic Christians were attacked after their Christmas Eve mass.

Orthodox Christians, including the Coptic church, celebrate Christmas according to the oriental Julian calendar, in which Christmas falls two weeks after 25 December in the western Gregorian calendar.

There are frequent clashes between Muslims and the Christian minority in southern Egypt. The Copts, who form around ten percent of Egypt's population, complain that they are the victims of discrimination and sometimes even sectarian attacks. The shooting is thought to have been precipitated by the rape of a Muslim woman by a Coptic man.

Photo: Coptic church - Flickr/Jungle Boy