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Egypt: Man tries to kill Christian, says he did not know the victim, but hated him for being Christian

March 30, 2020

Persecution of Christians in Egypt: we remain in prayer for our brothers and sisters of the Coptic Orthodox Christian Church in Egypt as they are persecuted on a nearly daily basis for their faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, often with attacks on individuals such as this one.

Not only the Copts, but also our 300,000 Greek Orthodox brothers and sisters in Egypt suffer sporadic persecution, discrimination, and harassment, and as we see so often, frequently Egyptian officials do little or nothing to alleviate their plight.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Egypt, see here.

“Man who stabbed Copt referred to criminal court,” by Nader Shukry, WataniNet, February 12, 2020:

A man who admitted to an attempt to slaughter a Copt, and who was referred to the Misdemeanours Court has been referred to the Criminal Court instead.

Muhammad Awad, 32, a bearded Muslim, had on the evening of 14 January 2020 approached the Copt Rafiq Karam, 56, who was then sitting at the vehicle paintshop which he owns in the district of al-Marg, northeast Cairo. Cursing Christians and branding them “sons of Lot”, Mr Awad tried to slit Mr Karam’s throat with a cutter, and ended up causing him a 7-centimetre gash from the ear to the front of his throat. Locals rushed to move Mr Karam to hospital where his wound was stitched and he was given the necessary treatment.

Mr Awad was caught and handed to the police. He admitted to attempting to kill Mr Karam who he said he did not personally know, but hated him for being a Christian. Copts, he said, were “sinful sons of Lot” who warranted execution according to Islamic hudoud. Hudoud are legal Islamic penalties that must be meted for certain crimes; in this case, according to Mr Awad, the penalty was death. Mr Awad said he hated “al-Nassara” which literally means Nazarenes and is commonly used as a derogatory term to denote Christians. He said he never knew Mr Karam, but assaulted him on account of his infidel Christian religion….

Photo by Frank Schulenburg – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20174691