Egypt arrests 59 Muslims after clash with Copts

CAIRO, May 12 (Reuters) Egyptian security forces have arrested 59 Muslims who took part in clashes with Coptic Christians over church construction in a village south of Cairo, security sources said today.

They said prosecutors ordered the arrests after taking the testimony of 10 Christians who were hurt in the clashes yesterday in which hundreds of villagers from both faiths fought with sticks and hurled bricks and firebombs at one another.

The sources said at least 10 Christian houses and five shops were gutted by fire during the clashes in the village of Behma, about 60 km from the Egyptian capital. Egyptian authorities were still assessing the damage.

Relations between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians in Egypt are generally peaceful despite sporadic violence, but restrictions on building churches have been one of the main grievances of Egypt's mainly Coptic Christian community.

Christians comprise up to 10 per cent of Egypt's roughly 75 million people, with the remainder being primarily Sunni Muslim.

Security sources said rumours that village Christians did not have a permit for church construction had sparked anger among Muslims that turned to violence after Friday prayers when about 300 Muslims clashed with a group of about 200 Christians.

Security sources said Christians had told authorities that the Friday sermon at a village mosque had discussed ongoing church construction, sparking anger among worshippers who emerged from the mosque in a large group and then moved to the church, where clashes erupted.

Police intervened to stop the clashes and sealed off the village, initially detaining 17 people of both faiths, the sources said. They could not immediately say if any Christians remained in police custody.

A spokesman for Egypt's interior ministry yesterday confirmed that around 500 Muslims had gathered after Friday prayers, and that the entrances to three homes had been set on fire. He said three people were hurt in the commotion but declined to characterise it as a clash.

One security source said Christians in Behma were expanding a house that was used informally for prayer, although others said the Christians were constructing a new church from scratch.

The sources could not immediately say whether the Christians had obtained proper building permits.

Egypt suffered its worst Christian-Muslim clashes in decades in 1999, when 20 Christians were killed, 22 people wounded and scores of shops destroyed in sectarian strife in the southern village of Kosheh.

In February, Muslims set fire to Christian-owned shops in southern Egypt after hearing rumours of a love affair between a Muslim woman and a Coptic Christian man.

Last year, a 45-year-old Muslim man stabbed a Coptic Christian man to death and wounded five others in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, sparking three days of sectarian clashes in which one Muslim was killed. Egypt says the attacker was mentally ill.

REUTERS SZ VV1419