Egypt’s Christians

“USA Today reports that “forty churches have been looted and torched, while 23 others have been attacked and heavily damaged” in one week. According to the Coptic Orthodox and Catholic churches in Egypt, 160 Christian-owned buildings have also been attacked.

“In one town, Islamists paraded three nuns on the streets like prisoners of war after burning their Franciscan school. The attackers tore a cross off the gate of the school and replaced it with an Islamist flag. The New York Times described hundreds of Islamists in one attack, ‘lashing out so ferociously that marble altars were left in broken heaps on the floor.’”

The violence has been ferocious: “Two security guards working on a tour boat owned by Christians were burned alive. An orphanage was burned down. The Catholic Bishop of Luxor told the Vatican news agency Tuesday that he has been trapped in his home for 20 days by Islamist mobs chanting ‘Death to the Christians.’”

The attacks are consistent with Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric, condemned by various Egyptians human rights groups over the past several months. “The problem,” Powers concludes, “is the Muslim Brotherhood, full stop. When will the Obama administration realize it?”