Posted by ACN News on 10/8/2012, 1:51 pm
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ACN News: Friday, 10th August 2012 – EGYPT Recent riots cause concern in Cairo: "A lot depends on the government" By Reinhard Backes According to a report of the Assyrian news agency AINA dated 3 August, 120 Coptic Orthodox families fled from the village of Dahshur south of Cairo last week. Their flight had followed a dispute between a Coptic tailor and his Muslim customer about a damaged garment. The situation had escalated, the tailor's house had been burnt down and the customer had been seriously injured. According to AINA he died a little later in hospital. As a result Muslims announced they would seek retribution, take revenge on the Christian family and burn the village church down. Following these recent violent clashes between Christians and Muslims, Father Hani Bakhoum Kiroulos, secretary of the Coptic Catholic Patriarch in Cairo has urged for calm. "It's important to get information first hand and not only from the media," the Coptic Catholic priest stressed to representatives of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. The situation was not really clear and no-one could tell what was to come. "If the government holds to account those who may have tried to take the law into their own hands, whether they be Christians or Muslims, such things will surely not reoccur so quickly," stressed Father Kiroulos. Fr Hani Bakhoum Kiroulos secretary of the Coptic Catholic Patriarch in Cairo Editor’s Notes Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action. The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, Aid to the Church in Need’s Child’s Bible – God Speaks to his Children has been translated into 162 languages and 48 million copies have been distributed all over the world. While ACN gives full permission for the media to freely make use of the charity’s press releases, please acknowledge ACN as the source of stories when using the material. For more information or to make a donation to help the work of Aid to the Church in Need, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 7246 Baulkham Hills NSW 2153. On Line donations can be made at www.aidtochurch.org