Last December at a protest against Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi in Egypt, it is alleged that an unveiled Christian woman was standing with other demonstrators when a hard-line Salafi fundamentalist came up to her and said “Cover your face you harlot!” She immediately reached down, took off her shoe, and slapped him across the face with it.
This story, now circulating on the internet, apparently originally appeared late last December in the Egyptian newspaper Misr an-Nahar-da (Egypt Today). It was reprinted in Al-Hasela.
Christians are about 10 percent of the population in Egypt, and many are middle class and well educated. Some in the community are very concerned with the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and what it will do to the status of minority Christians. The woman was understandably upset, but such physical responses to verbal provocation are unwise.
Coptic Church officials in Egypt have unhelpfully urged Christian girls to wear a headscarf in this conservative Muslim country.
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