A senior German politician on Monday claimed that Egypt’s Coptic Christians do not suffer persecution, but rather “some injustices.”
“There is no systematic persecution against Egypt’s Copts,” said Volker Kauder, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) parliamentary bloc.
His statements were delivered in Berlin after he made a visit to Egypt last week, following a New Year’s Eve suicide bombing on an Alexandria church which killed 23 and injured up to 100.
Kauder said that the injustices create a “suitable atmosphere” for recent protests by Egyptian Christian youths. “We cannot allow Islamist terrorism to disunite religions,” Kauder said, emphasizing the need for Muslim-Christian dialogue.
Kauder met with Egypt's People’s Assembly speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour during his visit, in addition to the chairman of the Egyptian Council for Human Rights Muqbil Shaker, and the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb.
