On Monday, December 12, Egypt\u2019s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi walked alongside the Coptic Pope Tawadros (Theodore) II at the funeral procession for victims of the bombing that had killed at least twenty-five people at the chapel of St. Mark\u2019s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo the day before. At the funeral, Sisi announced that the government had identified the suicide bomber, a twenty-two-year-old named Mahmoud Shafik Mostafa, and arrested four other people\u201d\u201dthree men and one woman\u201d\u201din connection with the attack. He also had strong words of condemnation: \u201cThose who commit acts such as this do not belong to Egypt at all, even if they are on its land.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
This series of events was strangely similar to what had taken place almost six years ago in another Egyptian city. In the early morning of January 1, 2011, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of a large crowd of worshippers who were leaving al-Qiddissin Church in Alexandria. Twenty-three people died. Soon thereafter, President Hosni Mubarak appeared on state television to condemn the attack: \u201cThe blood of their martyrs in Alexandria mixed to tell us all that all Egypt is the target and that blind terrorism does not differentiate between a Copt and a Muslim.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Much has changed in Egypt since 2011. Mubarak is no longer in office. He was ousted by a peaceful popular uprising a little over a month after the Alexandria attack. Mohamed Morsi\u201d\u201dthe Muslim Brotherhood\u201d\u201cbacked candidate who became the first democratically elected president of Egypt in 2012\u201d\u201dhas come and gone. He was ousted by a coup d\u2019\u00c3\u00a9tat led by Sisi in 2013. Sisi is still in power, having won an \u201celection\u201d\u009d (with 97 percent of the vote), and he has aggressively opposed his rivals, notably the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet with all of these developments, one thing has not changed: Attacks against Christians have continued.<\/p>\n