After surviving sectarian mob, Egyptian Christians expelled from village
The case sends a worrying signal that Egypt’s new parliament is allowing a Mubarak-era system of local justice to trump the rule of law
HARBAT, Egypt— (TCSM) Ten-year-old Romany sits in the same room where his family huddled together nearly three weeks ago, afraid for their lives, as a violent mob attacked their house.
His family had fled to this room on the top floor, where pictures of Jesus and Coptic saints hang on bare cement walls. His parents dragged heavy furniture to the door, barricading it as they heard people try to break in below. The mob was throwing rocks at the windows, and he heard gunfire, says Romany. They were cursing Christians.
“We kept praying that G0d would be with us,” says the fourth-grader. “And He was.”
As the mob set fire to the home of a Christian family across the street, Muslim neighbors saved Romany’s family, hustling them out of their house by a back entrance, into a car, and out of the village, until it was safe enough to return.
The violence in Sharbat began as many sectarian conflicts in Egypt do – with rumors of an affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman. It ended with eight Christian families forced to leave the village, their property and belongings left to be sold on their behalf by a local committee. The punishment for those who looted and burned Christian properties? None. (more…)










