Al-Ahram newspaper interviewed a number of Copts in Minya and officials of the villages, which has recently witnessed many sectarian incidents, stressing that the repetition of these crises because of the church building is a warning to the state that relieving the problems and friendly solutions is very dangerous to the community cohesion.
The newspaper met with Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Ali, reciter of the village of Kom Al-lofi, pointing out that he was smoking a hookah, accompanied by Sheikh Abdel-Gawad, the mosque’s imam and the two are Al-Azhar graduates and work at the Ministry of Awqaf, who said that there was no sectarian strife in the village but what has happened is a rumor of building a church that made the young motivated because they reject building a church .
He added that Copts proportion of the village is approximately 7.3% of the population, and their number doesn’t allow them to build a church, stressing we lived in peace until the story of the church building began and the fraught of young people led them to smash security vehicles.
Sheikh Abdel Gawad Sami, imam of the mosque added, the materials used are not specified to build a house, the iron used is measuring 5 mmm and the column consist of 12 skewer instead of 8, and it is not allowed that a minority in a village that have a Muslim majority build a church”
He added that the village has ten imams of 9 mosques and they teach moderation, , and the majority of them are Al-Azhar graduates and a minority of “Jemaah Islamiyah” and the sermon is unified.
The edito wondered, do you see that 500 people have no right for a worship house? Sheikh replied, this is not an equation we are a Muslim country if the church was already built we will not prevent prayers, why building the church now we need to reunite and avoid sedition and this is a sedition caused by the media, and people outside the village are building the church, wondering: They are a minority and this is not actually an affront to say that, It is better for a man to live in safe and comfort place reassured on his money and his land you don’t need to do something that ruin your life! “
She asked, do you think as you’re the main mosque Imaa What Sings the Muslim majority when a church is built in the village that contain ten mosques as you said? he answered ” it is not allowed , because our religion is against building this we are in a Muslim country. It is also not allowed according to the police since the eighties to build a church. We say that we have laws so you must enforce it, more than 30 persons from the village filed a complain that there is a church built in the village and no one responded to us and The police said that it will be demolished, but nothing happened the owner of the place is our neighbor and we provided him with work and livelihoods, but it seems that there are those who play with his mind and convinced him to build a church. “
He added, we offered them Magistrate and every one who damaged anything will repair it but they refused because there are people outside the town that incite these vulnerable poor people and if they didn’t intended to build a church, why they refuse Magistrate?
