European Court and the Crucifixes

The international system is spinning to please part of the world. A great number of western people simply call it political correctness. Others, including myself, consider it attacking certain beliefs, or simply attacking Christianity.

In the beginning of October, the United Nations Human rights council ruled against religious defamation, a project sponsored by the Egyptian regime. After analyzing this ruling, it is easy to see how it reads as a sentence against those who defame Islam!

Personally, like the majority of western people, I condemn the defamation of any religion. The western population grew up with deep respect for the deep beliefs of others and human rights in general. People living in the west do not need to have a law forcing them to have respect for the faith of another. The word respect is part of their DNA.

Egypt, on the other hand, does not respect other religions or basic human rights, and do to this, the European Court for Human Rights had to refuse the Egyptian filing and could not rule in its favor. Our political leaders know exactly the reality, but they close their eyes for personal and economic reasons ignoring any damage that may follow. The court system follows the same thoughts of the politically correct leaders, and their decisions are based on such. Please note that the majority of leaders in the west are acting in this same way in order to keep their political position.

Egypt, as in many other Arabic-speaking countries and countries with Islam majority, does not have to respect the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and basic human rights—the fundamental freedoms Europe is founded upon and fights to grant each of its citizens. It seems that the judges of European Courts come from another planet, totally unfamiliar with the status quo in Egypt :

- Oppression against any individual that does not belong to the religious majority.

- Discrimination in the daily life of school students and workers, and against those building their house of worship and participating in their customs as members of a religious minority.

- Destroying, burning, and closing any place of worship that does not belong to the religious majority, all with the blessing of law enforcement.

- Arresting religious personnel with false accusations.

- Arresting people for the simple reason of “praying without permit”.

- Making it impossible to change one’s faith from the state religion, but sanctioning and quickly finalizing the reverse, as in conversion from a minority religion to the state religion.

This is what is reported in the daily news of a country that sponsors and wins cases in the European Court . What would the world say if an Italian court ruled in favor of a law submitted by a Mafia group asking to incriminate anyone who defames them?

The same court is requesting to remove the cross from Italian classrooms. The reason is that visible crosses violate the right of those parents wanting to give their children a different education. The principle is great, but have the courts considered how many parents would rather have the cross?

During my years studying and living in Italy the cross was everywhere for all who chose to see it. Not at anytime, however, were you forced to look upon it or to worship it. The opposite is true in other countries where if you do not worship and follow the same faith you are considered nothing, and if you were killed, your murderer would not be judged.

On behalf of Voice of the Copts, I urge Italians citizens, political leaders, European citizens and leaders to stand against this new attempt to change the law which has only the goal to take away our freedom of faith and speech. We need to stand firm against this new violence that hides behind political correctness.





Dottore Architetto Ashraf Ramelah
President
www.voiceofthecopts.org
www.lavocedeicopti.org