Egyptian government first Copt minister in 30 years

The Egyptian government on Saturday took the constitutional oath before President Muhammad Hosni Mubarak of Egypt who issued a presidential decree provides for the appointment of the 26 new governors including the deployment of 8 new faces including one Christian Copt for the first time in 30 years.

Meantime, the Egyptian government found itself in the position of defending itself before the international community and legal organizations after the bloody end of the Sudanese refugees crisis in which 25 Sudanese asylum seekers were killed.

The new Egyptian government witnessed the departure of faces of the old guards such as the minister for parliamentary affairs Kamal al-Chazli.

Mubarak issued a resolution provided for appointing the Copt, Lt. Gen. Majdi Ayoun Iskandar, who occupied the post of the assistant for the minister of interior, as a governor for Qana in addition to other 25 governors including 8 new ones. Lt. Fouad Aziz Ghali was the last Copt figure to assume the post of the governor in Egypt, when the late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat appointed him a governor for southern Sinai following the war of 1973.