Egypt's Coptic Orthodox clergy have slammed the State-backed National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) for recently meeting with a European team representing Cairo's Jehovah's Witnesses.
While the NCHR said its move was a gesture for defending marginalised religious minorities around the world, the Church denounced the visit, claiming that the meeting represented 'unveiled' support on the part of the Council for the Jehovah's Witnesses cult and their activities.
Egypt's Church accuses the Jehovah's Witnesses of breaking up families, encouraging suicide and threatening the health of its members by not allowing blood transfusions. It does not recognise other religious sects.
Bishop Abdel-Messih Samaan of the Coptic Ecclesiastical Council said that the Egyptian Church did not approve of Jehovah's Witnesses, their beliefs or their errant prophecies.However, the cleric added that the NCHR was free to meet and listen to complaints from whatever religious cults it wanted, provided it did not discuss issues related to the Coptic Orthodox Church or its members."The NCHR is entitled to discuss human rights abuses, not religious beliefs," he explained, stressing that the Coptic Orthodox Church rejects the Jehovah's Witnesses' translation of the Holy Bible.
Ishaaq Hanna, the Secretary-General of the non-governmental group Egyptian Enlightenment Society, said that Jehovah's Witnesses had the right to practise their activities and express their views freely, even in Egypt."The Egyptian Constitution and Law approve such a right," Hanna pointed out, adding that he rejects the Church's media campaigns portraying Jehovah's Witnesses as a threat to Egyptian Copts and their unity.
Meanwhile, NCHR member Munir Fakhri Abdel-Nur, an Egyptian Copt, has criticised the clergy for intervening in the Council's affairs and reproaching it for welcoming the Jehovah's Witnesses team to Cairo."The clergy do not have the right to interfere in the affairs of the Council, which is only concerned with promoting and defending human rights, regardless of the religious or ethnic background of the people here or anywhere else in the world," Abdel-Nur told the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Mal.He said that the NCHR listened to human rights-related complaints and grievances from all the religious minorities without heeding criticism from rival major groups.According to him, the NCHR deals with all religious and ethnic minorities on an equal footing with other major groups, as long as they seek its help."Unlike the Bahaais, Qur'anis or any other minority groups, the Jehovah's Witnesses were the first group to come knocking at the NCHR's door, and the Council has the duty to listen to them," Abdul Nur said.