By Egyptian Christian Leader
(The following analysis about the horrific violence across Egypt was written by a Christian leader in Egypt. He is unnamed due to security concerns).
The words are heavy to put together this morning. The sad day of yesterday (Aug. 14) resulted in a sleepless night not only for me, but also for millions of Christian and Muslim Egyptians who love this country and genuinely seek its good and welfare. It was a day of many tears, pain and agony for what Egypt witnessed for the violence that resulted. According to the official report of the Egyptian Ministry of Health, there were 235 deaths and 2001 injuries. The number of casualties and injuries reported by the Muslim Brotherhood and promoted by Al-Jazeera and other Muslim Brotherhood-supporting media channels are of course much higher.
This is not the time to sit to at a discussion table to decide who is right and who is wrong or what should or should not have been done in the first place. The issue now is not either to decide whether Muslim Brotherhood protesters who were forced to leave Rabaa-el Adawia and Nahda Squares (where they have camped and blocked the streets for the last 45 days) were peaceful protestors who had a legitimate political case to defend or were not. I can pretty much go further to say that it’s not even the time to weep over tens of churches, Christian buildings, schools, Bible bookshops, shops and houses of Christians that have never systematically been targeted, looted, attacked or burnt down like what happened yesterday in Minya, Assiut, Sohag and several other cities.
The murder last week of the 10-year-old girl, Jessica Boulos, as she was walking back home from her Bible study class at one of Cairo’s evangelical churches by a fanatic Muslim gunman is unbearable and continues to throw it’s shadows of pain on her broken family and the entire Christian community of Egypt.