Pope declines to receive Congress Committee

The visit paid by the U.S. Congress fact-finding committee on the status of Copts in Egypt fuelled angry reactions and a wide-scale popular denunciation.

The Religious Freedoms Committee is spearheaded by Elliot Abrahams and comprises Laila El-Meraiti, member of the Blue Ribbon Committee on religious freedoms, and Nairooz Kazemzadeh, Secretary of the Foreign Affairs of the National Spiritual Council for the Bahais in the United States.

In the past few days, several committees were active to collect signatures of statements rejecting the visit and scores of Coptic readerships are organizing marches bound to the U.S. Embassy premises in protest against the visit.

On the other hand, Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Patriarch of Saint Mark Diocese, declined to receive the U.S. Committee members.

The U.S. Embassy sent a letter to the Pope to set a date for the meeting with the U.S. Committee members but he shunned the invitation on the grounds that Egypt's Copts refuse any foreign intervention in Egypt's affairs.

The Pope pointed out that any problems for the Copts could be solved with their Muslim brothers out of Egyptian national grounds.

Mamdouh Ramzy, a prominent Coptic lawyer, refused to meet the committee and told Al-Osboa that he rejects to meet with any U.S. official to talk about Egyptian affairs, considering this as flagrant interference in Egyptian affairs.

The Committee's programme involves several allegations about persecution of Copts in Egypt and that they are unable to freely perform their religious rituals.