Ruadhán Jones
The Irish Government must speak up about persecution of Christians in the Middle East, international charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) said, as recent videos showed ISIS executing a Christian in Egypt.
A 62-year-old Egyptian Christian, Nabil El-Habashy, was killed by ISIS in the Sinai Province of Egypt, which has witnessed several deadly terrorist attacks and army raids on terror hotbeds in the region.
ISIS published a video of the killing in which they said the man’s execution was for his cooperation with the Egyptian army.
ACN Ireland’s director Dr Michael Kinsella said that Mr El-Habashy’s “horrible” death is representative of “what the wider Christian community is going through in the Middle East itself”.
“There are millions of Coptic Christians in Egypt, a huge population, the largest in the Middle East,” he told The Irish Catholic. “If it can happen in a country in which Christians are the most populous, you can imagine what it’s like where they are a smaller component of the society itself.”
Dr Kinsella added that Egypt is “effectively the America of the Arab World” and tends “to set the precedents” for the Middle East.
In light of this attack, it is “morally incumbent” on the Irish Government to speak up about the plight of Christians in the Middle East.
“Cases like these are set aside in the interest of trade relations, political stability, political manoeuvring,” Dr Kinsella said. “It is morally incumbent on Ireland to speak about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East because they are the most persecuted peoples on the planet.
“One would think the script would almost write itself. Christians are the most persecuted peoples on the planet, and yet they’re the least talked about, they’re the least defended,” Dr Kinsella concluded.