Egypt's coup puts fearful Christians in a corner

ASSIUT, Egypt (AP):

It was night-time and 10,000 Islamists were marching down the most heavily Christian street in this ancient Egyptian city, chanting "Islamic, Islamic, despite the Christians." A half dozen kids were spray-painting 'Boycott the Christians' on walls, supervised by an adult.

While Islamists are on the defensive in Cairo following the military coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi, in Assiut and elsewhere in Egypt's deep south, they are waging a stepped-up hate campaign, claiming the country's Christian minority somehow engineered Morsi's downfall.

"Tawadros is a dog," says a spray-painted insult, referring to Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of the Copts, as Egypt's Christians are called. Christian homes, stores and places of worship have been marked with large painted crosses.

The hostility led a coalition of 16 Egyptian rights groups to warn on Wednesday of a wave of violence to come and to demand that the post-coup authorities protect the Christians, who are 10 per cent of the population and suffer chronic discrimination.

Nile-side Assiut, a city of one million people 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of Cairo, dates back to the pharaohs. The New Testament says Mary, Joseph, and the Infant Jesus passed through as they fled the infanticidal King Herod. Today, its Christian fears are compounded by the failure of authorities to curb the graffiti-spraying and the Islamists' demonstrations, which have gone on almost nightly since the July 3 coup that ousted Morsi.