care and support for mentally and physically handicapped children and orphans outside Cairo, BosNewsLife monitored Thursday November 20.
"Just after midnight in the early hours of Tuesday 18 November an army dump truck was driven repeatedly into the perimeter wall surrounding the Patmos Christian Centre," 30 kilometres east of the Egyptian capital," said The Barnabas Fund. There were no reports of injuries.
The organization, which supports persecuted Christians, said it was the eighth attack on the centre in the past six and a half years.
"Soldiers from the local army unit are seeking to destroy the wall supposedly in order to conform to a new law passed" earlier this year, The Barnabas Fund said. The new legislation requires all buildings to be at least 100 metres from the Cairo-Suez road.
WALL
"The wall stands 50 metres from the road and was built ten years ago in full accordance with the law at the time," while other buildings in the area, including mosques, are even closer to the road, The Barnabas Fund added.
The organization quoted Church leaders as saying that the Minister of Defense has been opposed to the centre since 1997 and ordered "extreme and conservative Muslim officers from the local army unit to enforce the law on the Patmos Centre."
However government representatives, including the President’s office and the Ministry of the Interior, "have intervened positively in the past to protect the centre from intimidation and attacks by the military," The Barnabas Fund said.
VIOLENCE
Yet human rights groups have also complained that the government is not doing enough to stop the anti Christian violence. The latest tensions have been linked by human rights watchers to growing anti Christian sentiments among Muslim extremists.
Ex- Muslims who changed their faith and other Christians have been imprisoned and are often subjected to torture or sexual abuse, The Barnabas Fund and other organizations reported.
The Patmos Centre has been serving the local community in Egypt for fifteen years and The Barnabas Fund has urged Christians to " pray for the safety of the staff and (500-1000) visitors a day to the Patmos Centre. It also asked prayers so that "Muslim fundamentalist elements within the military will have their activities curtailed."
