The European parliament is calling on Egypt to do more to protect its Christian citizens. The move was provoked by the recent gunning down of members of the Coptic Church in southern Egypt.

On 6 January, Christmas Eve in the Coptic calendar, six members of the congregation of Christmas midnight mass were killed as they were leaving church. A Muslim policeman also died in the attack.

The vast majority of Egypt's 80 million inhabitants are Muslim and about 10 percent are Coptic Christians. President Hosni Mubarak has said that religious conflict threatens the country's unity. He says he wants Egypt to be a modern society that does not distinguish between Muslims and Copts.

The EU parliament's call, which was the initiative of the Dutch Christian Union party (Christen Unie), the junior member of the ruling coalition in the Netherlands, is also intended to send a signal to Malaysia.

The Malaysian government recently ruled that Christians in the predominantly Muslim country should not use the word 'Allah' for God. Malaysian Christians have used the word in that way for centuries.

photo: Hosni Mubarak (Flickr / World Economic Forum)