Australia condemns Coptic persecution

The Australian parliament this morning did the right thing.

It unanimously condemned the ‘persecution’ of Coptic Christians in Egypt, and called on the Government to make ‘immediate’ representations on the Coptic issue both to the UN and to the Egyptian government.

The vote comes at a time of uproar in Egypt over the army’s brutal attacks last Sunday on Coptic protestors in Cairo, which have left at least 24 dead and more than 200 injured.

The unanimity of the Canberra vote is a tribute to the tireless efforts of Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who incorporated the condemnation in a private member’s bill introduced some time ago. Mr Kelly’s bill was a response to the continuing failure of the Egyptian government to protect Egypt’s estimated eight million Christians – about 10 per cent of the population – from the endemic anti-Christian violence that has worsened since the fall of the Mubarak regime in February. 

But it was last weekend’s killings of Coptic demonstrators by the army that…