— WorldMag reports: “Churches attacked and Christians arrested? Egypt’s ancient church faces new levels of persecution”
— “As 30-year-old Fulla Asaad and her mother-in-law prepared a midday meal on July 11, they spied three Muslim men with cans of kerosene running through the home’s courtyard in their small, Egyptian town. Yelling for help, they did their best to stop them but the men poured fuel on the adjacent building — a small structure the Asaads had donated to their church. The men set it on fire — the only gathering place for the Coptic Christian community in Ezbet Basilious, a village in Upper Egypt south of Cairo.”
— “After questioning witnesses, local police arrested two Copts, Asaad and 35-year-old Reda Gamal Huzayin, and accused them of attacking their own church. Part of a growing trend throughout Egypt’s Coptic communities, local police and security forces are framing Christians while the perpetrators escape prosecution. And as Islamic radicalism spreads across a nation that plays a key role in the region, so have attacks against the region’s largest and oldest Christian community.”