Copts in the U.S. Protest against Bombing of Church in Alexandria, Egypt, That Killed 25 and Wounded Dozens

Christians protest with crucifixes and icons of Jesus in front of the federal building in Westwood, California, in an attempt to put pressure on the American authorities to intervene by the Egyptian counterparts in order to make sure the Christian community is being protected against bombings and predicaments similar to those in the New Year’s Day.

A bombing inside an Egyptian church on the first day of the new year left 25 dead and injured dozens more, provoking awe and fury in Egypt and in the Christian world.

President Obama called the bombings in Egypt “outrageous.” The protesters however think more can be done on the matter, given that Egypt is a recipient of United States aid, and so its leaders could be made more aware of the necessity to secure the lives and welfare of the Christian Copts there.

According to a Copt leader in Westwood, talking won’t solve the problems of the security of Copts in Egypt, where they face a lot of persecution as the authorities turn a blind eye on the situation.

“We need,” Mike Azer said, “to get a message to the American government so that they may press the Egyptian government to stop this violence and terrorist acts.”

The bombing on Saturday in a church of Alexandria, at a time when the congregation were leaving Saints Church, is one of the deadliest attack on Christian communities the Copts remember.

President Hosni Mubarak alluded to the fact that the bombings may have been caused by “foreign fingers,” that is by Muslims from other countries.

These attacks come as an “aftershock” of other such attacks in the Muslim world against Christian communities, the most brutal of all being the one in the first days of November when a Christian church in Baghdad was attacked by a commando of Islamic extremists.

On Christmas, a community of Christian people was attacked in the center of Nigeria, sparking inter-religious violence in that country which is divided between Christian and Muslim communities.