Our correspondent Egypt, Asaad Sameh: Representatives from the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights are to visit tomorrow the Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazief, to hand him a complaint against Dr. Samir Farag, Head of Luxor City Council, due to the arbitrary confiscation of land owned by the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Luxor. The complaint warns that such actions from the City authorities would only bring sectarian strife to Luxor.
The Luxor Diocese and representatives of Egyptian Federation for Human Rights in Luxor confirmed that the General Secretary of the City Council in Luxor, General Sayid el-Wikeel has confiscated the remaining 200 square meters from the land owned by the Diocese, adjacent to St.Antonious Church, and added it to the periphery of the main street to be a new car park.
On hearing this confiscation news, Coptic youth from Luxor gathered and erected on 24th March a wooden fence surrounding the land with a notice board of ownership of the Diocese of that land.
However, next morning General el-Wikeel with a police patrol came and swore to ‘thrice divorce his wife’ (a very serious Muslim threat that would leave his wife divorced!!!) if the Diocese did not dismantle the wooden fence. The Diocese had to demolish the fence amid the anger of the crowd regaeding the disrespect of the City authorities to private property.
When asked about the issue, Dr. Samir Farag, the Head of Luxor City Council, answered sarcastically: "those people must have dreamed at night that they erected a fence, then they themselves dismantled it in the morning"!!! according to the Luxor representatives of the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights.
The land in dispute together with two houses was bought years ago by the Diocese from a Copt.When plans to renovate the street began, the city council demolished the two houses and confiscated 400 square meters of the 600 square meters total land to be included in the periphery of the street.
Last week the city council acted again and without notice by confiscating another 200 square meters, the remainder of the land.
The Copts gathered to object against such arbitrary council action, which can only lead to sectarian strife in Luxor.
This Luxor incident is not rare, as the Coptic Church property is always under attack. The incidents are too many to mention.
Only last November 2008, in the village of Meet Nma, a Muslim man under pretence that a piece of land bought seven years ago by Shubra Alkhayma Diocese belonged to him, and he put a fence around it. This incident cause an uproar as hundreds of Meet Nma Copts went to the Pope Shenouda’s weekly sermon in Cairo, and protested loudly, carrying banners that their Coptic Church is precious to them and other banners that Muslims are robbing them of their property. Due to the scandal, matter was resolved by the State Security removing the fence and handing over the land to the Diocese.
It is worth noting that the Shubra Alkhayma Diocese has applied since 20-11-2004¡ for a liscence to build a church on this land for 400 Christian families living in that village who are without a church.
However, this liscence has not yet been granted.
In August 2008, the Egyptian Army’s Second Division, under orders from Fieldmarshall Tantawy, Egyptian minister of defense, attacked Patmos Monastery, outside Cairo, in an effort to confiscate its land, currently worth millions, to distribute it among army officers.
Voice of the Copts intends in the very near future to bring up a series about the systematic attacks and confiscation of the Coptic Church’s property.