AFRICA/EGYPT - Intimidation against Copts who do not pay their "taxes" to a Muslim clan

Friday, 3 October 2014

Assiut (Agenzia Fides) - In the Egyptian village of al-Qusiya, 50 km from Assiut, members of the Coptic families Fahmy and Azmy were forced to barricade themselves in the house after a gang of extortionists had attacked them for not paying "taxes" imposed on them by the Muslim clan of Ahmed Kamel Zaawila. This week’s episode represents the last serious development in a long line of intimidations suffered by the Copts in Qussiya by the Zaawila clan. At least twenty complaints lodged to the local police after the perpetration of similar cases - reports the Coptic Watani network - have fallen on deaf ears. In this circumstance, the members of the Fahmy family have addressed the complaint directly to the Minister of the Interior pro tempore, Muhammad Ibrahim. The concern among the Copts of the village has increased after the clan leader Ahmed Zaawila phoned one of them, directly from the prison in which he is imprisoned, and ordered not to lodge other complaints, defining all the attempts to appeal to the forces of the local police useless.
The scourge of 'taxes' imposed on Copts family groups by Muslim extortionists is becoming alarming in Assiut, in the Upper Nile. "The victims of such harassment – explains to Fides Agency Anba Kyrillos William, Coptic Catholic Bishop of Assiut - are mostly wealthy Copts families, with members who have earned a lot working in Kuwait or in other foreign countries. The criminals have no scruples, also because they find pseudo-religious justifications for their behavior, being convinced that it is permissible for a Muslim to steal the goods of Christians. Christians instead in some cases are uncertain whether to denounce the payment of taxes or to shut up and pay. The effect is that this type of crime increases. At the same time, in some cases it has been proved that the extortionists have paid bribes to some police officers in order to secure impunity". (GV) (Agenzia Fides 03/10/2014)


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