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Yesterday, August 22, the temperature hovered around the 90 degree mark in Washington, DC. But that didn’t stop 30+ bus loads of Egyptian Americans from gathering at Lafayette Park in front of The White House to protest what they see as the Obama Administration’s blatant bias towards the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. They also came to be a witness to the world, and particularly to Americans, of the persecution of Egyptian Christians by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists in Egypt.
Copts and other Christians, along with Muslim Egyptian Americans, and their supporters rolled in from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, and North Carolina, after leaving from Coptic churches in those locations at the crack of dawn. My presence at the rally was far less sacrificial — I only had to walk three blocks, and across the park, to join them.
I had met some of the protestors at the last demonstration, which took place in April 2013 while Mohamed Morsi was still in office. At that demonstration Egyptian Christians were carrying signs highlighting the persecution of Egypt’s Christians and declaring that U.S. aid to Egypt (to the Muslim Brotherhood government) was helping to kill Copts and to destroy churches and Christians’ homes and businesses. Many also carried Egyptian and American flags.
This time, the signs were even more urgent and targeted. Just like their fellow Copts in Egypt, and like all Egyptians who supported the “People’s Coup” in July that took down President Morsi, the Egyptian Americans look to the Egyptian Army and General Sisi as the defenders of Egypt. They are outraged that the U.S. government continues to defend the Muslim Brotherhood and to insist that all of the Islamists should be included in the “democratic process” when these groups are perpetrating such evil in Egypt.
In addition to burning over 82 churches and other Christian institutions and schools, the Morsi-supporters have also burned Christian homes and businesses and killed many individual Christians, including a ten-year-old girl leaving Bible study, and a Coptic priest in Sinai. The Brotherhood has also tortured and killed members of the police and armed forces. Egyptians are shocked that the U.S. would now consider stopping aid to Egypt, at a time when they finally have an opportunity to achieve true democracy and religious freedom, and rout out these terrorists.
Egyptian Americans were also there to express their displeasure with media sources such as The Washington Post and CNN. They are frustrated that the truth of what has been taking place in Egypt is not being told by the mainstream media in the West. The media, they believe, is simply parroting the talking points of the State Department and The White House. All of this was reflected in the signs carried by the hundreds of demonstrators yesterday.
After a couple of hours in front of The White House, we marched to the offices of The Washington Post on Fifteenth Street, NW. Histrionic Post writers soon published stories that told of being under “lockdown” while hundreds of Egyptians protested outside their doors. For about thirty minutes we remained there and chanted such slogans as “Washington Post supports terrorists” and “Shame on you, Washington Post.”
The protest moved on to several other venues after that. I had to return to my office, so I was not able to go along. But before I left the crowd in front of The Washington Post, I saw something that brought tears to my eyes. Two young men were carrying a model of a church, blackened with smoke and stained red — representing the dozens of burned churches and the blood of the martyrs. They were carrying the church on a small platform with poles that rested on their shoulders. They reminded me of priests of Israel carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s presence among His people.
Not far away, a little boy held a sign that showed boys about his own age praying inside the scorched wreckage of an Egyptian church. His sign read, “You can burn down our churches, but you can never touch our faith.” God is present with Egyptian Christians — even in the midst of their suffering. They know He cares about them. What they wonder is, do their brother and sister Christians in America care, too?
(We disseminated this Statement of Solidarity with the Christians of Egypt and with all Freedom-Desiring Egyptian People at the demonstration, with the help of two great IRD supporters, Susan and Claudia.)
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