Egyptian mosque turned into house of torture for Christians after Muslim Brotherhood protest

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  Amir Ayad lies in a hospital bed after he was allegedly beaten by Islamic hardliners who stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo. (MidEast Christian News)

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  Protesters chant in front of the general prosecutor's office in Cairo this week after the arrest of a prominent blogger and four others following violent clashes between supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

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  Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is under fire from Copts and moderate Muslims, but violent militias are fighting his opponents in the streets. (AP)AP/Egypt State TV

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Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators, some of whom were Muslim, say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back. The floodgates are open.”

- Shaul Gabbay, University of Denver professor on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a hospital bed.

Ayad said he was beaten for hours with sticks before being left for dead on a roadside. Amir’s brother, Ezzat Ayad, said he received an anonymous phone call at 3 a.m. Saturday, with the caller saying his brother had been found near death and had been taken to the ambulance.

“He underwent radiation treatment that proved that he suffered a fracture in the bottom of his skull, a fracture in his left arm, a bleeding in the right eye, and birdshot injuries,” Ezzat Ayad said.

Officials at the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque said radical militias stormed the building, in the Cairo suburb of Moqattam, after Friday prayers.

“[We] deeply regret what has happened and apologize to the people of Moqattam,” mosque officials said in a statement, adding that “they had lost control over the mosque at the time."

The statement also “denounced and condemned the violence and involving mosques in political conflicts.”

The latest crackdown is further confirmation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s most hard-line elements are consolidating control in Egypt, according to Shaul Gabbay, a professor of international studies at the University of Denver.

“It will only get worse,” said Gabbay. “This has been a longstanding conflict, but now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in power, it is moving forward to implement its ideology – which is that Christians are supposed to become Muslims.

“There is no longer anything to hold them back,” he continued. “The floodgates are open.”

Gabbay said the violent militias that allegedly tortured Ayad work hand-in-hand with police and may, in fact, be beyond the control of increasingly unpopular President Mohammed Morsi. While he may benefit from roving bands that attack demonstrators, they also undermine his claim of being a legitimate leader.

“Egyptian society is split over the Morsi regime, and it is not just a Coptic-Muslim split,” Gabbay said. “The less conservative elements of the Muslim society are increasingly uneasy with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Christian Copts are an easy target, but they are not alone in their mistrust of the Brotherhood.”

Experts agreed that the Copts, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the nation’s 83 million people, are not alone in their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, which took power in hotly contested elections following the 2011 ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak. Moderate Muslims and secular liberals are increasingly uncomfortable with the Islamization of the government.  

Sheikh Ahmed Saber, a well-known imam and official in Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments, has blasted Morsi’s justice ministry for allowing persecution of Copts.

“All Egyptians in general are oppressed, but Christians are particularly oppressed, because they suffer double of what others suffer,” Saber told MCN.

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Secretary Kerry, now is not the time to give money to Egypt's Muslim brotherhood

Secretary of State John Kerry has made exactly the wrong move. Releasing $250 million in aid to Egypt’s fragile Muslim Brotherhood government -- based on nothing more than hopes and promises -- is the worst possible course of action and gives a hostile and repressive regime a lifeline at precisely the wrong time.

In fact, given the Muslim Brotherhood’s recent record, it’s impossible to believe any promises of “reform.”

As Egypt’s economy continues to crumble, and periodic violence flares in Cairo and in cities along the Suez canal, and Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi’s consistent priority has been pressing his radical anti-American and anti-Israel agenda.  The list of the Muslim Brotherhood’s sins is long and growing:

- Egypt is violently persecuting its Coptic Christian minority, even going so far as arresting small children for allegedly defiling the Koran.

- Its security forces failed in their legal responsibility to protect the American embassy as protestors stormed the embassy, tore down the American flag, and replaced it with the black flag of jihad.

- Egypt is now becoming not just a source of terrorists but also a launching pad for terror attacks; deadly terror attacks have been launched against Israel from Egyptian soil and Egyptian terrorists were present in the 2012 Benghazi attack and in the recent attack and violence in Algeria.

- Despite getting credit for brokering the Israel/Hamas cease fire last November, Egypt loudly and publicly backed Hamas, a terrorist organization and a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

- Egypt has passed a Shariah-based constitution that restricts religious freedom and provides a legal basis for continued persecution of Egypt’s embattled Christian minority.

- Fox News recently reported that Egyptian authorities denied the U.S. direct access to a Benghazi terrorist suspect, a shocking act from an alleged “ally.”

- Finally, let’s not forget that Egypt’s president is a blatant and outspoken anti-Semite who calls Jews the “descendants of apes and pigs” and said that Egyptian children should be “nursed” on “hatred” for Israel. 

Egypt’s repressive failures have become so obvious that even the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman has begun to sour on Egypt’s version of the so-called “Arab Spring” (more like an Islamist Winter).  

The Muslim Brotherhood’s ruthlessness is matched only by its own economic incompetence.  As the people grow restless, the Morsi government is looking for something, anything, to validate and consolidate its hold on power. 

Fortunately for the Mohammed Morsi, the U.S. State Department is there to lend a hand.  

In addition to this recent infusion of cash – courtesy of the American taxpayer – the U.S. has given the Brotherhood something more valuable than cash: modern weaponry.  

Just as Egypt seethed with unrest, the Muslim Brotherhood and American embassy staff celebrated the delivery of four new American-made F-16 fighter jets, the first batch of 20 new jets – a $213 million gift from American taxpayers.  The celebration reportedly even included glossy American photos of the deadly and agile jets staged under a huge Egyptian flag.

Some have justified this delivery on the basis that the Egyptian military is a force for moderation, but it is now firmly under President Morsi’s control after he fired its Mubarak-era leadership.  

Others claim that we’re obligated to deliver the weapons under the terms of the Camp David accords, yet Egypt has breached the Accords repeatedly since the Arab Spring – even to the point of moving tanks into the Sinai.

Every new F-16 or tank delivered to Egypt is another weapon that can be used to consolidate the Muslim Brotherhood’s grip on power.  Every new dollar of economic aid buys the Brotherhood more time.  For Mohammed Morsi, this aid represents far more than a marginal increase in military and economic strength, it also represents an American seal of approval and a stamp of legitimacy on his repressive regime.  Every F-16 is a propaganda victory for the Morsi regime.

Egypt still has a chance for moderation.  After all, few things cure radical impulses better than the experience of radical rule, and the country does have a long recent history of peace with Israel.  But moderation will be infinitely more difficult to achieve if we arm and aid its most dangerous enemies.

As Egypt still struggles to determine its destiny, if we put our thumb on the scales at all, we must not do so in favor of jihadists.  The Muslim Brotherhood needs our weapons and our money.  We do not need the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

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