Nothing says Islam is the religion of peace better than a violent aftermath of Friday prayers.
LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim protesters trying to storm a Coptic Christian church in southern Egypt Friday, after a word spread that a Christian man sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl.
Witnesses in Marashda village in the province of Qena said several shops and cars owned by Coptic Christians were torched overnight after Muslim villagers accused a merchant in his sixties of molesting the young girl.
Violence flared again after Friday prayers, with witnesses saying protesters surrounded the village's central Abu Fam church, hurling stones and trying to storm it. Some climbed the church walls and destroyed a cross atop it. Police fired tear gas to scatter the crowd.
Qena security director Gen. Salah Mazid was quoted in state media as saying that police are investigating the accusations against the merchant, who turned himself in at a nearby police station.
A resident who lives next to the church blamed extremist Islamists for spreading news of the accusations in order to enrage crowds and incite an attack on the church.
"They are terrorizing us. They try to find a reason to attack us," said the resident, asking not to be named for fear of retribution. "In no time, this village turned to a ball of fire."
"We know those behind it," he said, referring to the Group for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, an organization which he said over the past two months has been visiting cafes and ordering people not to smoke. They force Muslims to go to the mosque to pray, he added.
More...
