From my new article at Christianity Today, published October 23, 2013, on why protesting a drive-by shooting is complicated for Egypt’s Christians:
The wedding party stood outside the church, eagerly awaiting the ceremonious arrival of the bride. Instead, drive-by shooters killed four, including two children and the groom’s mother, and injured 18.
Beyond its poignancy, the attack in Cairo’s industrial neighborhood of Warraq was significant for being one of the first to target Egypt’s Christians specifically, versus the now-common attacks on their church buildings.
“Since the revolution, this is the first instance Coptic people were targeted randomly in a church, with weapons,” said Mina Magdy, general coordinator for the Maspero Youth Union, a mostly Coptic revolutionary group formed in response to church burnings in 2011 after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.
Please click here to read the rest of the article at Christianity Today, which describes the pulling back of protests so as not to be associated with anti-‘coup’ sentiment. There is also a video of the second wedding, held in a burnt-out church in Upper Egypt, which you can watch here (4:14 mark).
Jayson Casper 