Egypt General Says Army Never Fires on People

W300

Egyptian soldiers never fire on citizens and if they did use their weapons the results would be catastrophic, a military general said on Wednesday, days after deadly clashes with Christians.

"The armed forces cannot direct their fire at the people," General Mahmud Hegazi told a news conference days after the armed forces clashed with Coptic Christian protesters, leaving 25 people dead.

Over the weekend, 25 people were killed in Cairo in clashes between Muslims and mainly Copt Christians.

The Copts are the largest Christian minority community in the Middle East, and one of the oldest.

Vatican records show some 165,000 Catholic Copts lived in Egypt in 2010.

Weakly represented in government, Copts complain that they are sidelined in the community and suffer from very restrictive legislation on building churches, whereas the regime for building mosques is very liberal.

On January 1, 2011 the unclaimed bombing of a Coptic church killed 23 people in Egypt's second city of Alexandria.

In March, 13 people were killed in bloody clashes between Muslims and Copts and another 15 died in clashes in May.

Comments 2
Default-user-icon shiite (Guest) over 12 years

The first time the filthy member of the Zionist infested Iranian terrorist group so called Islamic resistance in Lebanon operating in Egypt was arrested and thrown in jail a church blew up.

He took advantage of the uprising to escape.

And when the filthy member of the Zionist infested Iranian terrorist group so called Islamic resistance in Lebanon operating in Egypt was rearrested and jailed again another church blew up.

Coincidence?

On a side note, he was the only Shiite member of his filthy Zionist infested Iranian terrorist group so called Islamic revolution in Lebanon cell operating in Egypt, all other members were Sunni Salafis. Goes to show the filthy Zionist infested Iranian terrorist group so called Islamic revolution in Lebanon uses like minded Sunni Salafis to commit terrorist acts on it's behalf.

Nahr el Bared a red line said Nasrallah now you know why.

Default-user-icon John from Koura (Guest) over 12 years

It is disgusting how Al Jazeera, the Saudi media, and the Egyptian (mubarek) military tried to justify the killing of Copts. The Arab spring revolution in Egypt and Tunisia was led by the left, but since then, the Saudi government is using billions of dollars with a counter revolutionary movement to help the Salafists in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, and the evil American empire is supporting them (Osama bin laden all over again). I miss Nasser.