By BosNewsLife Middle East Service
CAIRO, EGYPT (BosNewsLife)– Egyptian police was under pressure Wednesday, April 9, to speed up an investigation into the killing of a young Christian woman by angry Islamists, friends said.
The 25-year-old Mary Sameh George, a devoted Coptic Christian, was hauled out of her car, beaten and stabbed to death by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood group in Cairo, the capital, after they saw a cross hanging from her rear-view mirror, according to witnesses.
“Mary had stopped her vehicle and parked in front of the Sun Private School in Ain Shams Street, near the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael Church, because of the march,” said Wahid, who saw the attack from his apartment.
“The Muslim Brotherhood supporters saw a hanging cross on her car and recognized that she was a Christian, so they attacked her,” he added in remarks published by the International Christian Concern (ICC) advocacy group.
George was murdered in Cairo’s suburb of Ain Shams where she often delivered food and medicine to elderly Christians and Muslims, after ending her shift at a local communications company, Christians said.
MOSQUE PRAYERS
The March 28 attack, following mosque prayer services, reportedly occurred while police clashed with Muslim Brotherhood supporters angered by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s decision to run for president, witnesses explained.
George Farid, the family’s lawyer, said the woman’s relatives have filed a police report, but added that no one had been detained for killing her.
He made clear that security forces should pursue those responsible for the killing, but said that will not replace the loss that her family and friends have experienced.
Among other victims in last week’s clashes was 22-year-old journalist Mayada Ashraf. She was reportedly shot and killed while covering the clashes between security forces and Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo’s Ain Shams area.
Besides the young women, at least two other people were killed in the violence, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Interior.
MORE INCIDENTS
These were no isolated incidents. Coptic Christians in Ain Shams said they regard every Friday as a day of death.
Nageh Afifi, a resident of Ain Shams, said other violence included a February 12 incident when a protest starting at Tawhid Mosque turned violent.
ICC quoted him as saying that four security guards posting outside two different churches were attacked.
Two of them were killed and the other two were reportedly hospitalized.
Several other churches have been attacked, amid growing concern among minority Christians about what they view as rising Islamic extremism in the country.
