On the Coptic issue in Egypt

Egyptian Minister of the Interior Lt. Gen Habib al-Adli decided to change the posts of four police officers within investigations of accusations addressed to them and to policemen of torturing people from al-Kashah village in the province of Suhaj, 500 km south of Cairo.

An Egyptian security source said that chief of al-Baleina police station Maj. Hani Jamal, criminal research chief Ashraf Hussein, Maj. Islam Muhammad and Lt. Muhammad Mansour were shifted to administrative posts in the province to "guarantee non -intervention in the process of investigations carried out in an al-Kashah incident, in which two Coptics were murdered.

Several citizens from al-Kashah village accused the four police officers of torturing them. This was expressed in testimony stated in a report from the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights on September 28.

In their testimony the people of the village spoke about being exposed to beatings, electrical shocks and suspension from a ceiling fan while they were questioned about the killings.

Meanwhile, a statement was issued in Cairo on Thursday bearing the signature of 2,000 Coptic public figures, men of religion, businessmen and artists denouncing the "continued attempts made by enemy hostile forces in rumoring false claims of Coptic repression."

The statement denounced "provoking lies on their own name and the name of Christians in Egypt so as to distort the image of the Egyptian government before the international community." The statement added that the "Copts of Egypt perform their religious rituals and freely erect their churches, whereas Muslims and Copts have exchanged feelings of amity."