Cairo Clashes to be Investigated

Egyptian Christians clashed with military police in central Cairo overnight on Sunday, leaving at least 25 people dead and 322 wounded.

Military police raced armored vehicles into a crowd of Christians who were demonstrating against an attack on a church in southern Egypt and demanding that Aswan governor Mostafa al-Sayed be dismissed for failing to protect it

Christians have long complained about discrimination by the state, and tensions with the majority Muslims have been simmering. But violence raged with the rise of strict Salafist and other Islamist groups that Mubarak had repressed.

Egyptian Human rights activist, Hossam Bahghat said "The Sunday massacre is a turning point; we think something was broken and it will take us a very long time to get over what happened on Sunday. It's the unprecedented death toll, it's the fact that they were killed by the armed forces, and it's the fact that the state media instigated this violence and that now the official narrative blames the Copts for their own deaths."

Meanwhile, the ruling military council called on the interim government to investigate the clashes urgently and said it would take necessary measures to maintain security.

But much of the anger from Sunday's violence targeted the army, accused by politicians from all sides of worsening social tension through a clumsy response to street violence and by not giving a clear timetable for handing power to civilians.

The military-backed government says it does not discriminate and has promised to address Christian concerns.

Speaker:
Hossam Bahghat, Egyptian Human rights activist