AFRICA/EGYPT - A demonstration protest in front of the Coptic Cathedral has been prohibited

Tuesday, 8 September 2015

Cairo (Agenzia Fides) - The Egyptian Ministry of the Interior has not authorized a demonstration protest, much announced, which was to be held in Cairo, in front of the Orthodox Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark. The promoters of the event were sectors of the Coptic community, including activists linked to the acronym Copts 38, who have long been asking for a change in the laws on the personal status that also regulate the marriage law, currently being redefined.
"Copts 38" was established in 2011 to demand the restoration of canonical dispositions established by the Coptic Orthodox Church in 1938, that involved nine cases where Coptic Christians were allowed to divorce.
Even militants of the Maspero Youth Union - a group of young activists, expression of the Orthodox Coptic community, usually critical towards the church hierarchy - have officially distanced themselves from exasperated polemical tones with which the unauthorized protest had been advertised. "Freedom of speech should be guaranteed, but the only appropriate language in the Church is that of dialogue", said a statement released by the Maspero Youth and sent to Agenzia Fides. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 08/09/2015)


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