Egyptian Police Failed to Defend Churches, Rights Group Says - NYTimes.com
▻http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/egyptian-police-failed-to-defend-churches-rights-group-says
... on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch released a video report that documented what it called “simultaneous” attacks on churches across the country on Aug. 14 — the day the Egyptian security forces violently dispersed two pro-Morsi sit-ins in Cairo, killing more than 600 people. The group criticized the security forces for failing to defend the ransacked churches, saying that the police were not present at the churches before the attacks began and failed to respond to Christians’ calls for help.
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One young Christian man interviewed by Human Rights Watch in the burnt-out husk of his local church said that there was a police station 20 or 30 yards down the road, but that as a mob descended on the church, no one came to defend it.
“Not even the fire service came to put out the fire,” said the young man, Philimon Sameer. “People in the neighborhood helped us put it out.”
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