Four Shiites dragged to death in Egypt village Shiite leader accuses Mursi of “scapegoating” Shiites to please Salafists Cairo: Hundreds of hardline Islamists have killed four Egyptian Shiites on suspicion of promoting their creed in a Sunni-majority village, security sources said late Sunday. The angry hardliners Sunday encircled the house of Shaikh Hassan Sehata, a local Shiite leader, and hurled petrol bombs at it in the village of Zawyat Abu Moslem south of Cairo, added the sources. The hardliners, known also as Salafists, broke into Shehata’s house and dragged him to death on the street. Three other Shiites were killed in the attack. Footage broadcast on a local TV station showed hundreds of local villagers, some of them wielding clubs, beating up and kicking the body of a bloodied person lying on the ground. Chief Prosecutor Talaat Abdullah ordered an urgent inquiry into the incident, reported state media. “President Mohammad Mursi offers Egyptian Shiites as a scapegoat to Salafists so that they will back him,” said Bahaa Anwar, the spokesman for Egypt’s Shiite minority. Mursi, a Sunni Muslim, has been locked in a sharp dispute with the secular-leaning opposition in recent months. Anwar also accused police of arriving “too late” at the village and failing to take action against the assailants. Egypt’s Salafists, who regard Shiites as heretics, have staged a series of protests in recent months against allowing Shiite Iranians to visit predominantly Sunni Egypt. There are no official figures about the number of Shiites in Egypt, but they are believed to be around 750,000 people out of the country’s 85 million population.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 06:54:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015