Egypt: One man killed in Coptic churches stabbing

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A man fatally stabbed an elderly Coptic Christian and wounded at least five other worshippers outside churches Friday, provoking about 600 Christians to demonstrate against what they saw as government indifference. The Interior Ministry said the assailant, Mahmoud Salah-Eddin Abdel-Raziq, was "psychologically disturbed," but the protesters blamed the government of President Hosni Mubarak for what they called a sectarian attack on Christians, who number about 10 percent of Egypt's 72 million people. "If the people who were responsible for el-Kusheh and Moharrem Bek had been held to account, this would not have happened," Michael Pissada, 22, told The Associated Press from a hospital bed where he was recovering from wounds to his arm. He was referring to Muslim-Coptic clashes that killed 22 people in southern Egypt in 1998 and four people in Alexandria last year.