As the following report indicates, this is a “first.” Eighteen Muslims involved in terrorizing Copts are charged with, among other things, “ridiculing religion.” Of course, whether they will actually be found guilty and serve time is a whole other matter. While this possibly nominal move is a “first,” terrorizing Copts is practically as old as Islam, and, 1400 years later, still seems to make headlines on any given week. (Interesting also how the age group charged with terrorizing Copts—15 to 25—is precisely the same age group that OBL has determined is most fit to be engaged in the jihad.)
“Firsts in sectarian conflict,” by Nader Shukry, from Watani, July 8:
An illicit affair between a 17-year-old Coptic man and an 18-year-old Muslim married woman from the town of Tamiya in Fayoum resulted in Muslim demonstrations and the torching of Copts’ property last week.A Coptic-owned supermarket, timber store, and kiosk were torched, an attempt was made to set a gas station aflame but the fire was quickly put out. Two Coptic-owned cars were damaged, and two young men attacked.
The security authorities, however, played a positive role in containing the situation. They heightened security in town, confiscated motorcycles and tuk-tuks since these were used to throw fiery balls at the Copts’ shops, and detained scores of Muslim suspects. Eighteen of them were referred to the prosecution for investigation. They were charged with arson, mobbing, and ridiculing religion—the first time such a charge is levelled at suspects.
The deputy prosecutor Wa’el Abdel-Hamid told Watani that the suspects were in the age group of 15 – 25 years old, most of them were uneducated, and none were related to the woman in question. On Tuesday a reconciliation meeting was held in the town and was attended by more than 50 of the elders of the Muslim and Coptic families, as well as Fr Rufail Samy and MP Ahmed Abdel-Qawi. A written agreement was reached by which the Coptic young man on whose account the violence erupted was banished from town.
It was also decided that Copts should be indemnified for the losses through community donations and that, if any such situation arose in the future, the same rules should apply.
Watani is reported to be an attack site by McAfee Site Advisor. Perhaps a different link?
Oh and the Coptic boy is banned from the town for having a mutually AGREED upon relationship with this moslem girl?!
How long till we hear she was "honor" killed?
Meanwhile moslems are raping women all over the world! Maybe we should start to react the way they do!!
coming to our parts of the world.. ever so steadily.. and far from stealthily.
The POLOticians could easily point to all these things happening in the islamic world as reason why they are not welcome to settle inside our lands!
Not to go off-topic but here are the stats for Watani:
"What is the current listing status for www.wataninet.com/?
Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.
Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 28 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 20 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 07/08/2008, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 07/08/2008.
Malicious software includes 17 scripting exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 2 new processes on the target machine.
Malicious software is hosted on 40 domain(s), including ucomddv.com, catdbw.mobi, bigadnet.com.
10 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including bigadnet.com, catdbw.mobi, advabnr.com.
Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?
Over the past 90 days, www.wataninet.com/ appeared to function as an intermediary for the infection of 1 site(s) including watani.com.eg.
Has this site hosted malware?
Yes, this site has hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. It infected 1 domain(s), including watani.com.eg.
How did this happen?
In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.
Next steps:
* Return to the previous page.
* If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google's Webmaster Help Center."
"An illicit affair between a 17-year-old Coptic man and an 18-year-old Muslim married woman from the town of Tamiya in Fayoum resulted in Muslim demonstrations..."
In the Islamic world, this "illicit affair" could actually have been a platonic friendship or even a brief, innocent conversation.
It's important to filter events in the Muslim world through the prism of surrealism.
Somebody is deleting posts with a VERY heavy hand today..
True, it could have been innocent, and in all probability was...
Then again, both parties are adolescents. Now, I don't condone adultery, if this is what it ultimately turns out to be, but wtf is with getting married at 18? Or even earlier for all I know?
And anyway, since when was a 17 y/o considered a man (don't answer, I know in the past even 15 y/os could have been men by the lights of their society, but we're talking about the modern era here).
But yes, definitely a sign of hope. Maybe. I'll just wait and see...
Ah, young love, celebrated in poetry and song for centuries.....except by muslims, if one of the lovers isn't a slave of allah.
Muslims only celebrate one side of young love - that is, when the girl is a child, and the younger the better!
But then, that's just lust and control and domination - not love at all, as we know it.
The light of an oncoming freight train?