Mourning the Coptic Winter

Friday, 4 November 2011 — Federation Square, Melbourne

I join with the many people in Australia who today mourn the persecution of the Copts in Egypt.

During the three decades of the rule of Hosni Mubarak, discrimination against the Copts increased. They were regularly targeted for discrimination, and were subject to increasing violence from Islamist Jihadi radicals. One such case occurred when six Christians and an off-duty police officer were massacred as they were leaving a Christmas service in January last year.

It was hoped that the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ would bring a new era of religious toleration to Egypt. Instead, it has marked a ‘Coptic Winter’ for many of the estimated 80 million Christians who constitute about 15 per cent of the country’s population.

The most egregious case of the violent intolerance of the Coptic people came recently with the tragic killing of many innocent people by the Egyptian military forces.

The images were sickening.

The rest of the world, including Australia, rightly protested this blatant and callous abuse of human rights.

In a democracy such as our own, we must protest civilly. But protest we must.

When the human rights of any people are abused, the liberties of us all are endangered.

We are part of the one body of humanity. The totalitarian impulse, unchecked, threatens us all.

It must be confronted; it must be resisted; and it must be defeated.

Let us pray today for the victims of these terrible events; let us raise our voices in protest against the perpetrators; and let us affirm our resolve to resist those who abuse freedom and liberty.