Egyptian MP insists Christians' murders were sectarian

Rights activists accuse Egypt's ruling party of downplaying the significance of the deaths of six Christians on Christmas Eve.

Georgette Qollini, a Christian parliamentarian, has fuelled a fierce debate over the deaths of six people on Christmas Eve.

CAIRO // Two weeks after gunmen killed six Christians outside an Orthodox Christmas Eve mass in an Upper Egyptian town, MPs in Egypt's parliament are fighting to determine whether the deaths were caused by sectarian tensions or a criminal vendetta.

The conflict reached a head on Sunday, when a Christian parliamentarian confronted high-level members of her own ruling party to demand that they acknowledge the religious nature of the murders. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president, and other senior members of the National Democratic Party (NDP) have sought to portray the killings as nothing more than a violent feud. "We are one people. We are not fanatics because we are all children of this land and there is no difference between Egyptian Muslims, Christians and Jews," Mr Mubarak was quoted as saying in the state-run Al Ahram newspaper this week.

Initial reports of the incident stated that the attacks in Nagaa Hammadi, about 65km south of the tourist city of Luxor, were in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Muslim teenager by a Christian man in the nearby town of Farshout in November. Egypt's People's Assembly has sent two delegations to Qena Governorate, where Farshout and Nagaa Hamadi are located, to investigate the murders and its causes. Georgette Qollini, a Christian parliamentarian and an NDP member, took part in one of the delegations at the request of Egypt's state-run National Council on Human Rights. It is compiling a report on the murders that council members said would be released next week.

Ms Qollini sparked a dramatic exchange in parliament on Sunday when she accused the government of essentially whitewashing the crimes to diminish the impression that Egypt was suffering from sectarian divisions between its Muslim majority and its Christian minority, which comprises about 10 per cent of its population. "I'll tell the truth even if it costs me my neck, even if the attacks and insults become harsher and even if they compromise my political future as some have warned me," said Ms Qollini, as some of her colleagues shouted at her to quieten down, accusing her of showboating for the media.

"Don't try to act like a heroine," said Fathi Sorour, the speaker of parliament and a senior member of the NDP. "You are not speaking on behalf of Nagaa Hammadi. All of the parliamentarians are heroes. All of them are talking about this incident and all of them are concerned." According to human rights activists and analysts, NDP members have downplayed the incident to avoid taking political responsibility for rising tensions between Christians and Muslims.

"We think it's appalling that the vast majority of members of the People's Assembly seem to deny that the Nagaa Hammadi shooting was a sectarian incident," said Hossam Bahgat, the director of the Egyptian Initiative on Personal Rights, which was planning to release its own report on the crime this afternoon. "By failing to recognise this as a sectarian assault, we predicted from the very beginning that this would limit the judicial investigation to the killing."

The fact that the gunmen opened fire on an apparently random group of parishioners after an Orthodox Christmas Eve mass, reveals that the perpetrators were motivated by religious hatred, Mr Bahgat said. For their part, government officials point to the culture of violence they say is endemic to Upper Egypt, which is dominated by powerful, feuding clans. It is only when such incidents cross sectarian lines that they are scrutinised by the media and human rights groups, some members of parliament said.

"This is an individual incident, done by a criminal, whatever his motives are," Mr Sorour said in parliament on Sunday. "It only expresses the opinion of the perpetrator, not the opinion of society." Mohammed Amr, an NDP member of parliament, said that 19 witnesses to the murders assured a parliamentary committee that there was no sectarian motive. But for others, the government's repeated talk of an "individual incident" only reveals a lack of official responsibility for a problem that can only grow worse.

Bishop Kirolos, who leads the church that was targeted in the attacks, said yesterday: "I read about what happened in the parliament. They tried to make it appear as an individual incident and not a sectarian one. My opinion is that [the government] is like an ostrich that hides her head in the sand." [e-mail]