Cairo (AP) – An Egyptian criminal court has stripped an elderly Coptic Christian woman naked on the streets of a village in southern Egypt in Muslim 2016 and acquitted three Muslim men accused of marrying her, the state’s official news agency said.
The trio were sentenced in January to 10 years in absentia, before they were detained and prosecuted for assault in the southern province of Minya, where an armed Muslim mob attacked a 70-year-old woman four years ago, after rumors spread. That his son had an affair with a Muslim woman. Such relations are forbidden in strict Egypt.
The court handed down the verdict on Thursday after the complaint of the trio was completed.
Egypt’s chief prosecutor, Hamada al-Sawai, on Friday instructed his legal team to consider a possible appeal, the state news agency May reported.
The country was shocked by the May 2016 attack. At the time, Minya’s top Christian cleric, Amba Makrios, told a talk show host on the private Dream TV network that the woman was dragged out of her home by the mob, who beat her and insulted her before insulting her. She called Allahu Akbar, or “God is great.” To walk the streets shouting no.
It also sparked a storm of condemnation on social media where users blamed the incident on a strong influence in the realm of ultra-conservative Muslims known as sulphis. In the same outbreak of sectarian violence, seven Christian homes in the village of Minya in Karma were looted and burned.
Christians, who make up about 10% of Egypt’s more than 100 million population, have complained of discrimination at the hands of the Muslim majority.
Also on Friday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the “deteriorating” state of human rights in Egypt. The resolution was awaiting a decision by Italian lawyers to formally investigate the abduction, torture and murder of Giulio Regene, a 28-year-old Italian student in Egypt, in 2016 by four high-ranking members of Egypt’s security forces.
The Egyptian parliament rejected the immediate resolution as unacceptable. The move was accused by Egyptian authorities of “misleading” and “obstructing” the investigation, and called on EU member states to put pressure on Egypt to allow the four suspects to formally accuse them of cooperating with Italian judicial authorities. However, such resolutions of the European Parliament are of little importance as foreign affairs are left to each member state.
By the end of last month, Egyptian prosecutors were insisting that Regeni’s killer remain unknown. Officials allege that Cambridge University doctoral students have fallen victim to common robberies.
The EU Parliament’s resolution also listed the group of human rights violations reported in Egypt since last year and condemned the recent crackdown on personal initiative by Egypt, one of the country’s few remaining advocacy groups.
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