Christian leaders and human rights groups in Egypt are raising serious concerns about a law that would govern the construction of churches and mosques. The proposed law would place the power to permit or deny building in the hands of local communities, a decentralized system that critics argue places the Christian minority at a distinct disadvantage. “The bill before us now utterly fails to dispel the foundations of prejudice experienced by religious minorities, particularly Copts, who had hoped to see the institution of licensing procedures...made identical to those governing construction by their Muslim peers,” the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies wrote in a statement calling for the bill to be withdrawn. In a joint statement, the Egyptian Coptic, Anglican and Catholic Churches also expressed their disapproval of the current draft. Among the bill’s controversial items is a stipulation that a new church or mosque could not be built within one kilometer of an existing place of worship, a requirement that Christians say would make it nearly impossible to build in densely populated neighborhoods.
Church-Building Law Denounced in Egypt
Show Comments (0)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Observers around the world have grown weary of the images of starving children and desperate people gunned down while trying to collect bags of flour or boxes of food.
After four decades in education, both secular and Catholic, I have witnessed teaching models come and go. The moment before us, however, is not a passing phase; it is a threshold.
The relics of Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, who are set to be canonized later this year, will be displayed in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth.
The Irish government “has done nothing to reduce the numbers of abortions…and seems not to care why women choose abortion, or what happens to them afterwards,” Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin and Achonry said.