According to a source from Egypt's Coptic Church, a group of
Salafist Muslims attacked a church in Benghazi this week and detained
roughly 100 Egyptian Copts working in the country.
Activists
in Libya on Thursday posted photographs on Facebook allegedly
portraying Egyptian Coptic-Christians detained in Libya on charges of
proselytising. The activists asserted that the images would also be sent
to the United Nations, the Egyptian embassy in Libya, the Egyptian
foreign affairs ministry, the Libyan Observatory for Human Rights and
Human Rights Watch, in hopes that "action would be taken to secure their
release."
The detained Copts had been tortured by their captors,
who had also shaved their heads and used acid to burn off the crosses
tattooed on their wrists, the source – who preferred anonymity said.
The
source added: "The Coptic Church has sent an official request to the
Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in response has begun
negotiations with its Libyan counterpart to resolve the issue and
release the detained Christians."
On Thursday, Coptic Bishop
Pachomios, archbishop of Beheira, Matrouh and Libya, told the media: "I
am following up on the issue with church authorities in Cairo and the
Egyptian foreign affairs ministry."
Speaking from Ethiopia,
Pachomios added: "This is a very serious incident, in which Egyptian
citizens were arrested on the mere suspicion of proselytising and
tortured while in detention."
The bishop confirmed that the
Egyptians in question had worked in Libya, adding that "it doesn't make
sense that as many as 100 Egyptian Copts had decided to engage in
proselytising activities in another country."
Naguib Gabriel, head
of the Cairo-based Egyptian Union for Human Rights, expressed his
dismay over the reports. He, too, voiced doubt that the Egyptians in
question had been proselytising in Libya, saying: "Even if this were
proven to be the case, they should not have been detained because of
it."
Gabriel said he had called on Ali El-Ashry, Egypt's assistant
foreign minister for consular affairs, to intervene in the crisis. He
said he had also urged Arab League Secretary-General Nabil El-Arabi to
use his authority as Arab League chief to resolve the problem and secure
the captives' release.
"If the Egyptian state continues in its
inaction and fails to do its duty to secure the release of all Copts
detained in Libya, I will call on the UN Human Rights Council to
intervene and stop this farce," Gabriel said.
The arrests are the
latest in a series of recent incidents in Libya targeting Christians. In
December, two Egyptian Christians were killed and two injured when
suspected Islamic extremists threw a homemade bomb at a Coptic-Orthodox
church in western Libya.
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