CAIRO, 10 January 2005 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday called for unity among Egypt’s Muslims and minority Christians, whose normally calm ties were strained last month by several sectarian clashes. The head of Egypt’s Coptic Church went into retreat at a monastery last month to highlight a list of Christian grievances. He ended the retreat after being assured the complaints were being dealt with or would be discussed.
“We must not put any scope for differences between Muslim and Christian or Christian and Muslim, as some foreigners allege, to create a separation between the two sides,” Mubarak said. “There is no difference between us at all. We are Egyptians,” he told a meeting of youth leaders and local officials in the southern town of Aswan.
Security forces detained 34 people in December after clashing in Cairo with Christians protesting against what they said was the abduction and forced conversion to Islam of a priest’s wife. Muslim activists denied she converted under pressure.
Coptic clerics in southern Egypt have complained that dozens of Copts have been coerced into converting, some under pressure from employers. They also complain of problems in obtaining licenses to build churches.
At the end of December, Muslims in a village south of Cairo threw stones at a private building thinking a Christian resident was turning it into a church without state permission. One man was killed and two were wounded. A similar dispute prompted scuffles in another village earlier in December, after which police arrested 25 people.
Mubarak also said he did not mind others seeking nomination for this year’s presidential referendum but that the top job was tough and offered no private life.
Parliament has yet to choose the sole candidate allowed to run in the September referendum. But Mubarak is expected to be nominated again, despite reformers’ calls for the government to amend the constitution and allow more than one candidate to run.
Three prominent intellectuals have announced their intention to run for the position in a symbolic challenge to Mubarak. Asked about those seeking to run against him, Mubarak said: “Let them go ahead, this is good. Democracy is like this. I hope that 100 nominate (themselves). Why will I get angry? I won’t get angry.” The comments, originally made in a television interview, were carried in newspapers yesterday.
Although Parliament has yet to decide, the semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper has recently carried reports prejudging the decision, either saying Mubarak will win the nomination or the referendum itself.
When asked about his job, Mubarak said: “Firstly, whoever sits in the chair of the president of Egypt, his health, time and nerves are ruined and he has no private life at all.
