Hard labour for religous violence
2000-09-06 14:54
Sohag, Egypt - A court in southern Egypt has convicted 20 people of inciting violence and looting in an outbreak of religious violence earlier this year.
Another 19 people, including eight minors, were found innocent by the Sohag Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Sentences ranged from 10 years of hard labour to one year of hard labour.
"The court, as well as the Egyptian people, Muslims and Christians, regret the events that occurred. Let those be exceptional events, that are never to be repeated," Judge Safa al Noufous Mohamed al Khatib said as he read out the verdicts. Khatib had presided over a three-judge panel hearing the case.
The violence erupted on 2 January following an argument between a Muslim customer and a Coptic Christian shopkeeper in the southern town el-Kusheh. The fighting and looting spread to neighbouring villages, reaching Dar el-Salam, where five Copts were injured and 156 stores, homes, pharmacies and offices belonging to Copts were burned or looted. Tuesday's verdicts concerned only the Dar el-Salam rioting.
The violence in el-Kusheh resulted in the death of 23 people - mostly Christians. In all, 96 defendants are being tried for
incitement of violence in el-Kusheh.
Egypt's Christians, who are mostly Orthodox Copts, comprise 10 percent of the country's 65 million people and have generally lived peacefully with the overwhelmingly Muslim population. The el-Kusheh clashes were the worst outbreak of religious violence in memory.
- SAPA