Friday 27 July 2012

Watani Newspaper: Coptic youth say Church must withdraw

 
Coptic youth say Church must withdraw
Nader Shukry

Under the slogan “A constitution for all Egyptians”, Coptic activists joined the Maspero Youth Union (MYU) today in holding a demonstration at the grounds of the St Mark’s Cathedral in Abassiya, Cairo. The purpose was to call upon the Church to withdraw its representatives in the constituent assembly that is currently writing Egypt’s new constitution.

According to the MYU’s Andrawus Eweida, coordinator-general of the union, the efforts within the constituent assembly to write an Islamist constitution give rise to very little hope that Egypt may be getting a democratic constitution. The representatives of Church, Eweida said, have not been able to stand to this tide. Their presence on the assembly panel, he said, would only serve to lend legitimacy to an Islamist constitution.

MYU media committee head, Hany Abu-Leila, said that the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly appears to be seeking to transform Egypt into an Islamist country that would fit within their global project for an Islamic caliphate. The constitution now being written, he said, promises to represent various sectors of Egyptians very poorly or not at all.

For their part, Copts Unfettered and the Coalition of Egypt’s Copts refrained from participation in the demonstration which, according to the Coalition’s Fady Youssef, was a move hostile to the Church. He explained they preferred to talk the matter over with the Church leaders, and that they were already in the process of discussing the matter with the acting patriarch Anba Pachomeus.

WATANI International
27 July 2012
 
 

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