18 detained following sectarian violence in Beni Suef

Beni Suef prosecution ordered the detention of 18 people for four days following sectarian clashes that took place in one of the governorate’s villages on Friday.

A group of Muslims had gathered after the Friday prayers and attacked a house that was under construction and owned by a Copt after rumors spread that he was building a church, according to a statement by the Beni Suef governorate.

A video that went viral over the weekend shows the mob pelting rocks at the building, with sounds of broken glass and screaming heard in the background.

According to the statement, Nadi Guirgis was building a two-story house, designing it so that the second floor was not sectioned off into rooms and was left as an open space, allegedly to hold church services.

Investigations revealed that a local council filed a complaint against Guirgis for violating building regulations by not dividing the space into rooms as per the license he was granted, the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported.

Security forces cordoned off the village, according to Al-Ahram, in light of the violence. The Beni Suef governor also said that "calm had been restored."

The attack is the latest in a series of incidents of sectarian violence across Egypt this month, particularly in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya.

Last week, one person was killed and three others injured after a fight between four Muslims and the father of a priest. A few days earlier, a mob attacked and burned the houses of five Copts in the Abu Yaacoub village, after they heard a rumor that a church was going to be built there.

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued a statement last week, saying it has documented 77 cases of sectarian violence that occurred across the governorate since January 25, 2011. Ten of these have occured since the beginning of this year.

The statement added that these cases do not include attacks on churches and private and public property that took place in the aftermath of the violent dispersal of the pro-Brotherhood Rabea and Nahda sit-ins in August 2013.

Rights groups have attributed the rise of sectarian violence to the state’s reluctance to indict and hold those responsible for sectarian incidents accountable.

EIPR lamented and warned against the “official approach,” which deals with such issues through customary reconciliation sessions, describing it as “an instrument that only serves to perpetuate tensions and creates a climate in which any dispute between citizens is liable to escalate into sectarian violence and collective punishment.”