A) First report was 4 dead. Then your count. Then this count of 13. That's the official Egyptian government count of dead. Let's hope it stops at that.
B) There was a thread about the Helwan incident a few days ago when it was first reported, but people didn't want to believe it and the thread was locked.
C) The scope and breadth of violence in Egypt is nothing like anything in the US since the civil rights clashes in the 60s and it is becoming far worse than even that. I posted this link to a report on the last two years of religious (sectarian) violence from EIPR in the prior thread:
http://www.eipr.org/sites/default/files/reports/pdf/Sectarian_Violence_inTwoYears_EN.pdfIt's not just Copts. In one of those incidents, a Bahai was attacked.
The protest over the Helwan incident which caused this latest violence was because the Coptic church was destroyed, and to build a church in Eqypt, the Copts have to get permission from the government. So it is not as if they even have the legal right to rebuild their church which was destroyed by an angry mob.
And the radicalization hearings may be stupid, but no one's going to be killed because of them. What HAS been going on in Egypt is that the government basically doesn't enforce laws against this sort of violence. I quote from the report I linked above:
60. The repeated closure of cases involving sectarian violence, the choice of reconciliation over prosecution (even in cases where this is illegal) and the acquittals issued for all such crimes have made impunity the rule in these crimes. As a result, sectarian violence and the ensuing losses had increased by late 2009 and early 2010. In short, assailants feel a sense of victory twice: once when they are able to carry out their criminal assaults against a weaker party and again when the state stands beside them and protects them from any punishment for their actions. By the same token, this impunity leaves victims feeling like strangers and second-class citizens in their own country. First they are attacked simply because they are Christians and then the state does not bring them justice; it does not even stand by as a neutral party, but chooses to stand with the assailants against them.Nor do I post this as being against Muslims. There is a growing swell of protest among many Egyptian Muslims against this sort of thing. Many of the protesters in Tahrir Square risked their lives rather bravely, hoping to see a new day. May it come true.
But there are also segments within the country that don't want to see women have their rights under the Constitution or these other minorities. I think this should be publicized, because ignoring it leaves all those who are trying to change things in Eqypt without a voice internationally. I have been reading Egyptian bloggers for years, all of them Muslim, and there are A LOT of Muslims trying to change things. I have also been sickened by their reports of police beatings, etc, and the attacks on women in the street.