Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has called on the woman attacked by a mob in a Christian village in Minya province not to be “angered” by what happened.
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During the meeting, president Sisi affirmed that the meeting is a good opportunity to get acquainted with the various proposals and ideas to improve the investment climate in Egypt and enhance economic cooperation with several countries, said Presidential Spokesman Alaa Youssef.
Police in Egypt arrested five people after a mob of Muslims allegedly stripped naked a 70-year-old Christian woman and forced her to walk through the streets.
The agitated mob also reportedly torched at least seven Christian homes. He said they were armed with firearms, knifes and sticks.
“They emptied magazine after magazine, firing in the air to terrorize us”, Ayad said.
During his speech, the President also said that the attack was “deplorable” and promised to punish all those responsible “no matter how many there are”, reported Aswat Masriya.
The hashtag “Egypt stripped naked” on Twitter gained traction shortly after it was introduced.
In Egypt, it is illegal for Christian men to marry Muslim women, but not for Muslim men to marry Christian women. Many Egyptian Christians blamed extremist Salafi Muslims for being behind the attack.
The elderly woman is the mother of a Christian man rumoured to be involved with a Muslim woman. The family of the Christian man had notified the police of threats against them by Muslim villagers the day before the attack, he added.
“No one did anything and the police took no pre-emptive or security measures in anticipation of the attacks”, he said in a television interview at the time of the attack.
He added, “We are not living in a jungle or a tribal society”.
The woman is part of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, which makes up around 10 per cent of the country’s 90 million people.
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El-Sisi has, since taking office in 2014, amended election laws to allow more Christians into the national legislature and eased restrictions on building churches. But Egyptian Christians say they are still the frequent target of Muslim criminal gangs and are often victimized in disputes with Muslims.
