Most recently, a court sentenced 19 Muslim defendants to a one-year suspended sentence for attacking an unregistered church near Giza last December 22. Dozens of Muslim rioters had gathered outside the building; they eventually stormed it and “destroyed the church’s contents and assaulted Christians inside.”

Based on this sentencing (from a misdemeanor court no less), the defendants are not required to serve prison time unless they get into trouble again. On the other hand, a Coptic Christian defendant was fined 360,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $20,383) for setting up the unlicensed church. The court’s logic is that, by using an unregistered building as a church, the entire incident is the Copt’s fault — for aggrieving local Muslims.

Meanwhile, the well-known fact is that getting a church permit in Egypt is as difficult as getting a mosque permit is easy — and explains why havoc ensues when Copts merely try to renovate a church, while ten mosques are opened every week. In other words, if the government did not make it so difficult for Copts to congregate and worship, they would not need to resort to using private homes and unregistered buildings. 

After waiting 44 years, the Christians of Nag Shenouda were issued the necessary permits to build a church in 2015. According to a report, local Muslims rioted and burned down the temporary worship tent. When a Christian tried to hold a religious service in his home, another Muslim mob attacked it. Denied a place to worship, the Christians of Nag Shenouda celebrated Easter in the street. Much of this is consistent with the World Watch List 2018, which ranked Egypt the 17^th worst nation in the world wherein to be Christian. It found that “officials at any level from local to national” are “strongly responsible” for the “oppression” of Egypt’s Christians.

“Government officials,” the report adds, “also act as drivers of persecution through their failure to vindicate the rights of Christians and also through their discriminatory acts which violate the fundamental rights of Christians.” While authorities themselves are sometimes the persecutors — as when Muslim soldiers beat several Christian soldiers to death on account of their faith, most recently in July 2017 — they more often function as enablers, allowing a culture of impunity to thrive.

All this again begs the question: whereas it may be understandable that Sisi cannot eliminate terrorism — after all, terrorists operate surreptitiously and work “in the shadows” — what about the fact that his very own government (from local police and authorities to top department heads and courtroom judges) is openly biased against the Copts, and right under his nose?