Almavorism breeds domination
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- Thousands of police manned barricades around Christian places of worship in this Mediterranean coastal city Saturday after seething sectarian tension spilled into the streets.
Egypt's top Muslim and Christian leaders called for calm Saturday, a day after 5,000 Muslim rioters rampaged through two predominantly Christian neighborhoods in Alexandria. The attack on churches and shops constituted Egypt's worst Muslim-Christian violence in five years.
The violence sparked clashes with rubber bullet-firing police in which two rioters and two policemen were killed, police and hospital officials said Saturday on condition of anonymity. At least 90 people were injured.
The violence followed a week of protests over a stage play deemed offensive to Muslims and performed two years earlier in the St. George's Coptic Church, which was one of seven churches attacked. Although unnoticed at the time, the play was recorded by someone and distributed on DVD recently, angering a large section of Alexandria's predominantly Muslim community.toll would rise much more.
The understatement award? "Worries of violence spreading." |
