Skip the whitewash. This occurrence represents a serious breach in discipline in the Egyptian Army. Had a German soldier in WWII killed a fellow soldier for any reason whatsoever, he would have been shot forthwith. That Copts are accepted in the military puts them under the full protection of the military justice system.
For the Egyptians, this is a potential catastrophe. It sets up the Coptic population to revolt in any circumstance forcing the army to fight. Since it has not been stopped dead in its track it must quickly fester and tear the army apart.
We are brewing up something awful in Egypt unfortunately.
Egyptian Muslim soldiers murder Christian comrades
http://www.speroforum.com/a/KOJMASZKER55/76421-Egyptian-Muslim-soldiers-murder-Christian-comrades
On August 23, a Coptic Christian soldier was killed in his army unit in
Egypt. Baha Saeed Karam, 22, was found with four bullet wounds at the
headquarters of his battalion in Marsa Matruh. Although transferred to a
hospital in Alexandria, he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
According to Baha’s brother Cyril, the Coptic soldier had recently told
him that he had gotten into arguments with other Muslim soldiers in his
unit, and that one had threatened him with death.
Baha is certainly not the first Coptic Christian serving in his country’s military to be killed over religion.
Only two months earlier, on June 24, Bahaa Gamal Mikhail Silvanus, a
23-year-old conscript, was found sitting dead in a chair with two bullet
wounds in his chest and a gun at his feet. Relatives who later saw the
body said he also had wounds atop his head, as if he had been bludgeoned
with an object.
The military’s official position was that the Copt committed suicide —
despite the fact that suicides are rarely able to shoot themselves
twice, or first hit themselves atop the head with blunt objects.
Moreover, according to Rev. Mikhail Shenouda:
A person who commits suicide is a disappointed and desperate
person, but Bahaa was in very good spirits. He was smiling always. He
was keeping the word of God.
He planned on entering the monastic life after his military service.
A friend of the deceased Christian said that Silvanus had confided to
him that he was regularly pressured by other soldiers in his unit to
convert to Islam:
He told me that the persecution of the fanatical Muslim conscripts
in the battalion against him had increased … and that they would kill
him if he wouldn’t convert to Islam.
On August 31, 2013, another Copt in the armed services, Abu al-Khair
Atta, was killed in his unit by an “extremist officer” for “refusing to
convert to Islam.” Again, the interior ministry informed the slain
Copt’s family that he had committed suicide. However, Abu al-Khair’s
father, citing eyewitnesses who spoke to him, said:
[O]ne of the radical, fanatical officers pressured and threatened
him on more than one occasion to convert to Islam. Abu al-Khair resisted
the threats, which vexed the officer more.
The deaths bring to mind horrific incidents from Egypt’s recent past.
Copt soldier Guirgus Rizq Yusif al-Maqar, 20, died on September 18,
2006. Without notifying him why, the armed forces summoned his
handicapped father to the station in Asyut. After making the arduous
journey, the father was verbally mistreated by some officers and then
bluntly told: “Go take your son’s corpse from the refrigerator!” The
father “collapsed from the horror of the news.”
Officials claimed the youth died of a sudden drop in blood pressure.
Later, however, while family members were washing Guirgus’ body, they
discovered wounds on his shoulders and a large black swelling on his
testicles.
Coptic Christian conscript Baha Mikhail Silvanus supposedly committed suicide
Still assuming these were products of injuries incurred during harsh training, his family proceeded to bury him. Later, however, a colleague of the deceased told them that Guirgus was regularly insulted, humiliated, and beaten – including on his testicles — simply because he was Christian. The dead youth’s irate family implored authorities to exhume Guirgus’ body for a forensic examination, but this was denied.
On August 2006, the mutilated and drowned body of another Copt serving
in the Egyptian military, Hani Seraphim, was found. Earlier, he had
confided to his family that he was being insulted and abused for being a
Christian by his commander, both in public and in private: “His unit
commander ordered him to renounce Christianity and join the ranks of
Islam.” The Coptic youth refused, warning his Muslim commander: “I will
notify military intelligence about this,” to which his superior replied,
“Okay, Hani, soon I will settle my account with you.” His body was
later found floating in the Nile, covered with signs of torture.
It should come as no surprise that some Muslim soldiers insist that the
men fighting alongside them be Muslims as well. “Infidels” are seen as
untrustworthy, as fifth columns. Islamic law holds that non-Muslim
subjects are forbidden from owning weapons.
In Islam, allegiance belongs to the Umma — the abstract “Muslim world”
that transcends racial, linguistic, and territorial borders — and not to
any particular Muslim nation. It may seem reasonable that all Egyptian
citizens — Muslims and Christians alike — would serve in their nation’s
military. But for Muslims who equate “war” with “jihad,” having
non-Muslims fighting alongside them is unacceptable.
This sort of thinking is not limited to Egypt. In Kuwait, no one can
become a citizen without first converting to Islam. Indigenous Kuwaitis
who openly leave Islam lose their citizenship.
In nations as diverse as Iran and Sudan, prominent church leaders are
regularly persecuted — and some put on death row — on the accusation
that they must be treasonous agitators working for the West because they
are not Muslim. (The West, in the popular Muslim mind, continues to be
conflated with Christianity).
These modern-day slayings of Christian soldiers who refuse to convert
to Islam thoroughly contradict the historic narrative being peddled by
Mideast academics in America. Once again, then, the present sheds light
on the past.
In an attempt to whitewash the meaning of “jizya” – the extortion
money non-Muslims redeemed their lives with — Georgetown University’s
John Esposito writes that jizya was actually paid to “exempt them
[non-Muslims] from military service.” Similarly, Sohaib Sultan,
Princeton University’s Muslim chaplain, asserts that jizya was merely
“an exemption tax in lieu of military service.”
Such assertions are absurd: conquering Muslims never wanted their
conquered and despised “infidel” subjects to fight alongside them in the
name of jihad (holy war against infidels) without first converting to
Islam.
That’s how it was in the past, and increasingly the way it is in the present.
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