The Copts have suddenly become the Salafi Nour Party’s escape from disbandment ever since the Administrative Court obliged the Political Parties Affairs Committee to examine the legal position of parties with a religious bent before the start of the parliamentary elections. Sources within the party said it is granting membership to a large number of Copts so as to refute its religious nature.
Nader al-Serafy, the founder of the Copts 38 Movement fielded by the party in the elections, said 1,000 Copts are joining the party in the coming days or right after the elections, even though many Copts withdrew from the party just before submitting the candidacy applications, forcing it to reduce its lists of runners from four to two.
While it is understandable that the party is using the Copts in order to survive, it is not understandable why the Copts have agreed to join a party that considers them infidels.
And it is ridiculous for the party to claim that the Copts do not have a problem with its program, especially with regards to materials pertaining to Islamic Sharia, because the relationship between the Copts and the Nour Party cannot be limited to that program.
In fact, the relationship started much earlier when the Salafis destroyed the Atfeeh Church, forbade people to greet Copts and assaulted them in metro stations, let alone Yasser Borhamy’s repeated statements about them being infidels that should not live among them in this country.
So why do the Copts agree to join this party? Have they not learned from the Freedom and Justice Party of the Muslim Brotherhood when it appointed a Copt as vice president for the same reason, the straw man whose voice we never heard until the part was dissolved?
Once again, why do they agree?
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
