Why pushing for an economic ‘alliance’ with the US to counter Chinese coercion would be a mistake

Leah Millis/AP

James Laurenceson, University of Technology SydneyThe Australian government desperately hopes this week’s AUSMIN meetings between Australian and US officials will see greater practical American support being delivered in the face of ongoing trade strikes by China.

Reports confirm that measures to combat Chinese economic coercion will be discussed at the meetings between Foreign Minister Marise Payne, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and their American counterparts.

This desire is readily understood: China’s US$14.7 trillion (A$20 trillion) economy towers over Australia’s at $US1.3 trillion (A$1.7 trillion). And since May 2020, China has blocked or disrupted around a dozen Australian exports, including beef, wine, barley and coal. Previously, sales of these goods to China had been worth more than A$20 billion per year.

Yet, there is good reason to question whether repurposing the ANZUS security alliance to tackle economic issues — and working ever more closely with Washington on initiatives aimed at Beijing — represents a coherent strategy for Canberra to get what it wants.

In 2017, the leading Australian foreign policy practitioner, Allan Gyngell, wrote that the animating force behind Australia’s foreign policy has long been a “fear of abandonment” by a “great and powerful friend” – first the United Kingdom, and since the ANZUS treaty was signed in 1951, the US.

The US has consistently signalled its support for Australia in its trade dispute with China — at least, rhetorically.

Late last year, Jake Sullivan, the new national security adviser in the Biden administration, declared the US stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Australia.

Then, in March, Kurt Campbell, President Joe Biden’s “Indo-Pacific czar”, assured Australian media the US was “not going to leave Australia alone on the field”. This message was repeated in May by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Yet, when Trade Minister Dan Tehan went to Washington in July, he received a more tepid message regarding Australia’s stoush with China.

Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, was only prepared to say the US is “closely monitoring the trade situation between Australia and China” and she “welcomed continuing senior-level discussion”.

The US is not always a reliable partner

What has been particularly jarring isn’t just that the Biden administration has stopped at rhetoric, without offering any material support to Canberra. Rather, it has persisted with choices that actively hurt Australia.

One example is a continuation of the tariffs the Trump administration unilaterally imposed on Chinese imports, which were subsequently assessed by the World Trade Organisation as being inconsistent with international rules.

The US then appealed the decision, which effectively ended China’s legal challenge to the WTO. This was because the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have blocked the appointment of new judges to the WTO’s appeals body as the terms of serving judges expired.

As a result, the body was left completely paralysed in November 2020. Last month, the US rejected a proposal from 121 other WTO members to have it restored.

Lacking the sheer power of the US or China, Australia relies on global adherence to WTO rules to protect its trade interests. But the US actions mean the rules can no longer be enforced.

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Read more:
Dan Tehan’s daunting new role: restoring trade with China in a hostile political environment

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Another example is Tai’s insistence in February that China “needs to deliver” on the bilateral trade deal that Washington pressured Beijing into signing in January 2020.

This granted American producers favourable access to the Chinese market compared with their Australian competitors. It also served as another demonstration to China that big countries are able to use their power to coerce others.

Australia still likely to double down on US support

That US support for Australia hasn’t gone beyond rhetoric is in a sense not surprising. To do so would involve a political or economic cost to the US. The bilateral trade deal it struck with China, for example, benefits American producers.

But as Gyngell’s analysis suggests, tepid US support to date is more likely to prompt Australia to double down on its efforts to seek more US help.

Addressing the Australian American Leadership Dialogue in August, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that in view of China’s economic coercion, he believed “bilateral strategic cooperation must extend to economic matters”.

He proposed a “regular strategic economic dialogue” — an extension of AUSMIN talks that cover defence and foreign affairs – between key senior US and Australian economic and trade officials.

The American response to the proposal was reportedly “non-committal”.

Nonetheless, a new report commissioned by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney backed Morrison’s call and advocated an alliance response to China’s trade strikes on Australia.

Reasons to be concerned about an economic ‘alliance’

There’s nothing wrong with an economic dialogue with Washington. But there’s two important considerations for Canberra to reflect on.

First, the pain that Beijing has been able to inflict on the Australian economy by disrupting exports has been limited.

A new analysis by the Australia-China Relations Institute looked at 12 goods that were disrupted by China’s economic coercive actions — everything from barley to rock lobster. And it found that for nine of those 12 goods, the cost incurred by Australian exporters has been less than 10% of the total export value.

The analysis also found that in the first half of 2021, the value of Australia’s overall goods exports to China was actually 37% higher than the previous record set in 2019.

What this means is that China’s trade strikes are nowhere close to being an existential crisis. The Australian economy can weather the storm, with or without US support.

Second, what Australia wants most is for China to follow global trade rules and for these rules to be updated and extended to cover more activities, like government subsidies for agriculture and fisheries.

But the ANZUS alliance is ill-equipped to deliver on this. It has no legitimacy in setting or enforcing global trade rules. And the US has a poor record of following the existing WTO rules itself.

Further complicating matters, the US has designated China as a “strategic competitor” since 2017.

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Read more:
Trump took a sledgehammer to US-China relations. This won’t be an easy fix, even if Biden wins

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But as Peter Varghese, Australia’s former chief diplomat noted in June,

that does not automatically make it the strategic competitor of Australia.

The more the idea of an “economic alliance” with the US on par with its security alliance is embraced, the greater the danger of Australia getting bogged down with the US in a “forever war” against its largest trading partner — in this case, spilling treasure rather than blood.

Alternatively, the US might cut another bilateral trade deal with China, leaving Australia on the sidelines again.

If the Australian foreign and defence ministers emerge from this week’s AUSMIN meetings empty-handed on the economic front, the public might, in time, consider itself lucky.

James Laurenceson, Director and Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI), University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Treasury revises JobKeeper’s cost down by massive $60 billion, sparking calls to widen eligibility

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

The federal treasury has revised down by a massive $60 billion the estimated cost of the JobKeeper wage subsidy program, from an original $130 billion to $70 billion.

Treasury revealed its huge recalculation in a joint statement with the Australian Taxation Office, which also revealed there had been a large reporting error in estimates of the number of employees likely to access the program.

The costings revision, while highly embarrassing for treasury, is extremely good news for the government, which had committed around $200 billion to support measures to get the country through the pandemic.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “It is welcome news that the impact on the public purse from the program will not be as great as initially estimated”.

The government will be able to use money saved to reduce projected deficit and/or for other spending.

The news of the revision immediately prompted calls for JobKeeper to be widened to include workers, especially many casuals, who are not covered under its present rules.

But Frydenberg told the ABC: “We’re not making wholesale changes to the JobKeeper program. We’ll have a review, as we’ve always stated, mid-way through the program, and we’ll wait for the results of that review if there are to be any changes.”

When JobKeeper was developed, Treasury anticipated about 6.5 million employees would access the program, which provides a flat $1500 a fortnight for workers who remain connected to their employer. The assistance is available to employees of businesses which have had at least 30% fall in their turnover, or 50% in the case of big businesses.

Writing in The Conversation in late April, Melbourne University economists Roger Wilkins and Jeff Borland pointed to a disparity between the dive of 2.6 million full time jobs expected by Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe and the 6.6 million jobs the Treasury was preparing to fund under JobKeeper.

“What is surprising is the size of gap between the predicted number of payments and the predicted number of jobs at risk,” they wrote.

Treasury now expects only some 3.5 million workers to need JobKeeper.

While the Treasury revision of the scheme’s likely cost is driven by the fact circumstances have not born out its original assumptions, a reporting error by many businesses masked what was actually happening, so treasury’s numbers for a time appeared correct.

At a Senate committee hearing on Thursday Treasury was still talking about the program covering more than six million employees.

Explaining the wrong forecast, Friday’s statement said the original cost estimate was made when COVID-19 cases were “growing significantly” in Australia and restrictions were being tightened here and abroad.

“The difference between Treasury’s estimates at the time and the number of employees now accessing the JobKeeper program partly reflects the level and impact of health restrictions not having been as severe as expected and their imposition not having been maintained for as long as expected at the time.

“This has been reflected in some improvement to the outlook for the economy since the original estimate was developed,” the statement said.

“The variation in estimates also reflects the inherent uncertainty associated with estimating the take up of a demand driven program in the current circumstances.”

The enrolment forms completed by 910,055 businesses had indicated the program would cover about 6.5 million eligible employees – in line with treasury’s thinking.

But the ATO has now found about 1,000 of these businesses had made big mistakes in estimating eligible workers.

“The most common error was that instead of reporting the number of employees they expected to be eligible, they reported the amount of assistance they expected to receive.

“For example, over 500 businesses with ‘1’ eligible employee reported a figure of ‘1,500’ (which is the amount of JobKeeper payment they would expect to receive for each fortnight for that employee).”

The reporting error does not affect the payments already made to businesses.

This is because those payments are linked to a later declaration from a business in relation to every eligible worker.

“This declaration does not involve estimates and requires an employer to provide the tax file number for each eligible employee.”

The information where the reporting error occurred was just collected to obtain an early indication of how many employees were likely to go onto JobKeeper.

The mistakes were detected when the Tax Office investigated the large gap between the expected number who would go onto JobKeeper and the much smaller number actually accessing it.

By May 20, 910,055 businesses had enrolled in the program, with 759,654 making claims for eligible employees; $8.7 billion had been paid to those businesses, covering about 2.9 million employees.

Anthony Albanese said: “This is a mistake you could have seen from space. This is a government that couldn’t run a bath, let alone be good economic managers.”

Calls for the scheme to be revamped came from both the employer and employee sides.

The Australian Industry Group said the government should address the program’s anomalies and alter “rules which leave many employees without support and mean that many employers are facing unfair competition.

“With the estimated budgetary costs reduced by $60 billion there is considerable scope for refinements to the program,” the Ai Group said.

It urged the inclusion of low-margin businesses which had not had a 30% reduction in turnover but were “under greater stress than higher-margin businesses that do qualify for Jobkeeper”.

The ACTU tweeted “We have millions of workers who were left out of #JobKeeper on the premise that there wasn’t enough money. Now we know that it’s been underspent by $60 billion. There is no excuse – @JoshFrydenberg can fix this with a stroke of his pen. Expand JobKeeper now.”

The Transport Workers’ Union said the government should immediately pay the thousands of airport workers shut out of the scheme.

The Greens said the revision meant the government had “no excuse to return the Jobseeker payment to $40 a day at the end of September”.

Treasury still expects unemployment to reach 10% and says it would have reached 15% without JobKeeper.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why Trump’s decertification of the Iran nuclear deal may prove a costly mistake

Donald Trump’s justification for decertifying the Iran nuclear deal stems from his view that Iran is violating the deal’s spirit.
Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

Ben Rich, Curtin University

US President Donald Trump’s decision on Friday to decertify the Iran nuclear deal threatens the future of the landmark agreement, creates greater instability in the Middle East, and weakens America’s position in the wider global order.

Why is the agreement important?

Adopted in October 2015, the agreement was the culmination of 20 months of intense negotiations between Iran and a US-led coalition made up of the UN Security Council P5 nations (the US, the UK, Russia, France and China) as well as Germany. It significantly limited Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium and achieve a domestic nuclear weapons capability.

In exchange, a range of longstanding US and EU economic sanctions were removed against Iran. This allowed access to wider export markets for its beleaguered oil industry and permitted greater amounts of external investment – particularly from interested parties in Europe and China.

Iran was permitted to retain a civilian nuclear program for power and medical purposes. However, this was subjected to regular checks by international inspectors to ensure no nefarious activities were taking place.

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Further reading: Why now? Understanding the Iranian nuclear breakthrough

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The US president is required to certify that Iran is complying with the agreement every 90 days. If non-compliance is detected, the president’s decertification begins a congressional process that can end with the reimposition of sanctions.

Many saw the agreement as a significant and positive foreign policy legacy for former president Barack Obama. It was a rare achievement for an administration that largely fumbled in its approach to the Middle East.

Trump’s bellicosity

Consternation over Trump’s inability to effectively handle the Iran deal began long before he was sworn in as president. On the campaign trail, Trump described it as a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated” without clearly stating why.

As president, Trump has sullenly recertified the agreement twice. But he always indicated he wanted to assume a more hostile stance toward Iran.

While taking a harder line toward Iran is hardly a desire Trump holds alone among Republicans, he has offered little coherent vision on an alternative. Aside from vague threats of violence and suggestions he could “renegotiate” the agreement, Trump has provided little in the way of viable policy options.

In the case of the former, short of regime change, this would only lead to a more hostile Iran and a greater probability of nuclearisation – just as it did in similar circumstances during the Bush years.

For the latter, Trump is unlikely to be able to mobilise the necessary partners to return to the negotiating table. Nor could he entice an antagonised Iran to trust future US commitments after it feels the US has once again duped it.

The ‘spirit’ of the deal

Trump’s justification for decertification stems from his view that Iran is violating the deal’s “spirit”. This is despite other partners in the negotiations, and his own advisers, indicating that Iran remains compliant with the agreement.

Trump cites Iran’s support for militia groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as its ongoing ballistic missile program and backing of Syria’s Assad regime, as a dereliction of its commitment to the deal.

The problem with this logic is two-fold and interrelated.

First, none of these activities are included in the nuclear agreement. While they are certainly challenges to be responded to with a combination of carrots and sticks, the deal was never designed or intended to resolve them.

Second, Trump seems to expect that the agreement should act as a panacea to the wider challenge of Iran for the US. This attitude ignores the complex, slow and ongoing nature of adversarial diplomacy.

Normalising Iran within the international system – the ultimate goal of US engagement – is a process that will likely take decades. In this endeavour, an all-or-nothing attitude only serves to weaken Washington’s position in any ongoing delicate negotiations, where both parties need to walk away with some sense of accomplishment, dignity and confidence in their partners.

Obama was starkly aware of such realities. He knew that while he might not be able to curtail all of Iran’s regionally destabilising activities, discussions on the nuclear issue in isolation could offer a path forward.

Undermining multilateralism

The decertification also reinforces Trump’s disdain for multilateralism as a key tool for promoting US interests and resolving international problems.

Not only does Trump’s decision incense America’s partners in the deal, it also joins a long list of multilateral frameworks, alliances and agreements he has either abdicated, threatened or weakened. These include the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the North America Free Trade Agreement, the Paris climate accord, and NATO.

US participation and leadership in these institutions directly serves its own international interests: it helps it shape the norms and standards by which other countries engage in the global arena.

But, by undermining these same structures through such non-consultative and unilateral actions, the US disincentivises other countries from adhering to the rules-based international architecture it has sought to sculpt since 1945.

This has direct relevance for normalising Iran’s behaviour. It has viewed the international system as arrayed against it since at least the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.

Under such conditions, getting Iran to embrace a less revisionist and disruptive approach to foreign policy through socialisation and co-operation will hardly be helped by undermining a key structure of rapprochement.

At a wider level, such unilateralism harms US relations with its more traditional allies, which view it as a less reliable and predictable partner.

Trump’s transactional worldview may put little stock in national prestige. But such qualities can be just are crucial to the long-term diplomatic relationships of international affairs as short-term material concerns.

Should the US wish to maintain its global primacy, it cannot simply devolve into a bully power and expect others to remain in lock-step with its goals. While most US presidents have seemed to grasp this concept to varying degrees, it seems wholly beyond Trump’s neophytic views on grand strategy in foreign affairs.

Ben Rich, Lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Cricket: ODI Disgrace

Australia played Sri Lanka in a One Day International yesterday, however the game was abandoned after the first innings and a small number of overs in the Sri Lankan innings. The game became something of a farce for a number of reasons, including the dismissal of two Australian batsmen for LBW after they had clearly hit the ball into their legs.

One of the batsmen, David Warner, was visibly furious with the decision, yet walked off following the umpire’s decision. The link below is to an article reporting on his official reprimand for dissent, which frankly I find disgraceful. Surely if an umpire makes a terrible decision you must expect some show of disappointment with the decision from the batsman being given out. This is truly a pathetic outcome for an umpire’s mistake – the batsmen is further punished.

For more visit:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia-v-sri-lanka-2012/content/story/601605.html

Threat of Return to Hindu State in Nepal Looms

With deadline for new constitution approaching, Christians fear end of secular government.

KATHMANDU, Nepal, March 30 (CDN) — Four years after Nepal became officially secular, fear is growing that the country could revert to the Hindu state it was till 2006, when proclaiming Christ was a punishable offense and many churches functioned clandestinely to avoid being shut down.

Concerns were heightened after Nepal’s deposed King Gyanendra Shah, once regarded as a Hindu god, broke the silence he has observed since Nepal abolished monarchy in 2008. During his visit to a Hindu festival this month, the former king said that monarchy was not dead and could make a comeback if people so desired.

Soon after that, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, a former prime minister and respected leader of the largest ruling party, said that instead of getting a new constitution, Nepal should revive an earlier one. The 1990 constitution declared Nepal a Hindu kingdom with a constitutional monarch.

There is now growing doubt that the ruling parties will not be able to fashion the new constitution they promised by May.

“We feel betrayed,” said Dr. K.B. Rokaya, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Nepal. “The Constituent Assembly we elected to give us a new constitution that would strengthen democracy and secularism has frittered away the time and opportunity given to it.”

The clamor for a Hindu state has been growing as the May 28 deadline for the new constitution draws near. When a Hindu preacher, Kalidas Dahal, held a nine-day prayer ritual in Kathmandu this month seeking reinstatement of Hinduism as the state religion, thousands of people flocked to him. The throng included three former prime ministers and top leaders of the ruling parties.

“The large turnout signals that Hinduism is enshrined in the hearts of the people and can’t be abolished by the government,” said Hridayesh Tripathi, a former minister and Constituent Assembly member whose Terai Madhes Loktantrik Party is the fifth-largest in the ruling alliance. “It was a mistake to abolish Hinduism in a hurry.”

Another blow for a Hindu state was struck by the Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal (RPP-N), the only party that fought the 2008 election in support of monarchy and a Hindu state. It is now calling for a referendum. As a pressure tactic, it paralyzed the capital and its two neighboring cities in February by calling a general strike.

“The election gave the Constituent Assembly the mandate of writing a new constitution, not deciding issues of national importance,” said Kamal Thapa, the RPP-N chief who also was home minister during the brief government headed by Gyanendra. “Most people in Nepal want a Hindu state and a constitutional king. If their demand is not heeded, they will feel excluded and refuse to follow the new constitution. We are asking the government to hold a referendum on the two issues before May 28.”

With only two months left, it is clear the demand can’t be met if the constitution is to come into effect within the stipulated time. Now the specter of anarchy and violence hangs over Nepal.

Nepal’s Maoists, who fought a 10-year war to make Nepal a secular republic and who remain the former king’s most bitter enemy, say attempts have begun to whip up riots in the name of a Hindu state. The former guerrillas also allege that the campaign for the restoration of Hinduism as the state religion is backed by ministers, politicians from the ruling parties and militant religious groups from India.

Effectively Hindu

Even if a new, secular constitution is approved by the deadline, there is still no guarantee that the rights of religious minorities would be protected.

Nilambar Acharya, who heads the committee that is drafting the new constitution, said it would be merely a broad guideline for the government; compatible laws would have to be drafted to protect rights.

“The previous constitution abolished ‘untouchability’ [a practice among Hindus of treating those at the bottom of the social ladder as outcasts],” Acharya told Compass. “But untouchability still exists in Nepal. To achieve all that the constitution promises, the mindset of society has to be changed first. For that, you need political will.”

Though Nepal became secular in 2006, Hinduism still gets preferential treatment. The state allocates funds for institutions like the Kumari, the tradition of choosing prepubescent girls as protective deities of the state and worshipping them as “living goddesses.” The state also gave money to organizers of a controversial, five-yearly religious festival, the Gadhimai Fair, where tens of thousands of birds are slaughtered as offerings to Hindu gods despite international condemnation.

There is no support, predictably, for Christian festivals. When the Constituent Assembly was formed – partly though election and partly by nomination – no Christian name was proposed even though the prime minister was authorized to nominate members from unrepresented communities.

Christian leaders want such religious bias abolished. Rokaya of the National Council of Churches of Nepal said Christians have recommended full freedom of religion in the new constitution: allowing one to follow the religion of one’s choice, to change one’s religion if desired or have the right not to be associated with any religion.

The churches have also asked the state not to interfere in religious matters.

“We are asking the government not to fund any religious activity, not to be part of any religious appointments and not to allow public land for any religious event,” Rokaya said.

The recommendations, however, may not be heeded. During their brief stint in power, the Maoists tried to stop state assistance for the Kumari. It led to violence and a general strike in the capital, forcing the party to withdraw the decision.

In its 2009 report on religious freedom in Nepal, the U.S. Department of State notes that while the interim constitution officially declared the country secular, “the president, in his capacity as head of state, attended major Hindu religious ceremonies over which the king previously presided.”

It also notes that there were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.

“Those who converted to a different religious group occasionally faced violence and were ostracized socially,” it states. “Those who chose to convert to other religious groups, in particular Hindu citizens who converted to Islam or Christianity, were sometimes ostracized. They occasionally faced isolated incidents of hostility or discrimination from Hindu extremist groups. Some reportedly were forced to leave their villages.”

Dr. Ramesh Khatri, executive director of Association for Theological Education in Nepal, has experienced such persecution first-hand. When he became a Christian in 1972, his father disowned him. Then in 1984 he was arrested for holding a Bible camp. Though the case against him was dropped in 1990 after a pro-democracy movement, Khatri said hatred of Christians still persists.

“Christians can never sleep peacefully at night,” he said wryly. “The new constitution will make Nepal another India, where Christians are persecuted in Orissa, Gujarat and Karnataka.” The Oxford University-educated Khatri, who writes a column in a Nepali daily, said violent responses to his articles show how Nepal still regards its Christians.

“I am attacked as a ‘Rice Christian,’” he said. “It is a derogatory term implying I converted for material benefits. The antagonistic feeling society has towards Christians will not subside with the new constitution, and we can’t expect an easy life. The Bible says that, and the Bible is true.”

Christians continue to face persecution and harassment. In March, missions resource organization Timeless Impact International (TII) noted that a church in northern Nepal, near the foothills of Mt. Everest, was attacked by a local mob.

The newly established church in Dolakha district was attacked during a fellowship meeting in January. An ethnic mob headed by religious leaders destroyed the church meeting place, assaulted participants and warned them not to speak about Christianity in the village, TII said.

The situation, even now, remained unchanged.

“None of the church members have been able to return to their homes,” TII stated. “They feel completely unsafe and at risk.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

Another Copt Killed as Alleged Shooters Plead Not Guilty in Egypt

Coptic carpenter killed outside building that Muslims feared would be used as church.

ISTANBUL, February 16 (CDN) — Three men accused of killing six Coptic worshipers and a security guard pleaded not guilty on Saturday (Feb. 13) as the Coptic community mourned the loss of yet another victim of apparent anti-Christian violence.

The three men allegedly sprayed a crowd with gunfire after a Christmas service in Nag Hammadi on Jan. 6. In addition to the seven that were killed, nine others were wounded. The killings were the worst act of anti-Coptic violence since January 2000, when 20 Copts were killed in sectarian fighting in Al-Kosheh.

Defendants Mohammed al-Kammuni, Qorshi Abul Haggag and Hendawi Sayyed appeared Saturday in an emergency security court in Qena, a city 39 miles (63 kilometers) north of Luxor.

In front of the packed courtroom, the three men said little at the hearing other than to enter their plea before Judge Mohammed Adul Magd, according to one attorney present at the hearing. The men are charged with premeditated murder, public endangerment and damaging property.

Numerous Muslim attorneys volunteered to defend them for free as seven attorneys representing the interests of the victims looked on. The next hearing is set for March 20.

Even as the men entered their pleas, the Coptic community mourned the loss of yet another Christian, this one shot dead by police. On the evening of Feb. 9, Malak Saad, a 25-year-old Coptic carpenter living in Teta in Menoufia Province, was walking outside a meeting hall that police had seized from Christians when he was shot through his chest at close range. He died instantly.

Scant details are known about the shooting. Police surrounded the entire village and closed it to all reporters. In a statement, officials at the Interior Ministry said the Saad was killed by mistake when a bullet discharged while a police guard was cleaning his weapon. The Interior Ministry said the shooter has been detained and will be tried in a military court. Such courts are traditionally closed to the public.

One of Saad’s cousins, who requested anonymity, disputed the Interior Ministry’s version of the incident. He said that the guard had used the bathroom inside the meeting hall and had come outside of the building when he exchanged a few words with Saad and shot him at close range. The bullet went completely through Saad’s chest.

The building in question had been Coptic-owned for 16 years, but two days prior to the shooting, police seized it after a group of Muslims started a rumor that the owners planned to convert the hall into a church building.

Disputes over worship venues are common in Egypt. Copts and other Christians are extremely restricted in opening or even maintaining houses of worship because of complex government statutes. Anti-Christian elements within Egyptian society often use the statutes to harass Christians, Christian leaders said.

Christians Arrested

Following the Jan. 6 shootings, in a move that Christian leaders said was designed to silence the Coptic community’s protests, police began going door to door and arresting Coptic men in their late teens and 20s. Reports vary widely on the numbers of how many men were arrested, but 15 arrests have been confirmed.

Early in the morning of Jan. 8, officers from State Security Intelligence appeared at the home of Tanios Samuel looking for a different house. When officers realized they were at the wrong home, they arrested his brothers, Fady Milad Samuel, 21, and Wael Milad Samuel, 24.

“We are Copts. It is their country, they will do whatever they want,” Tanios Samuel said about the arrests.

He said the government is using his brothers and the others arrested as pawns to silence dissent. He said he lives in fear for himself and his brothers.

“The families are very scared – scared of violence, getting threats all the time,” Samuel said. “All we want is peace.”

Last month’s attack brought widespread outrage across the Coptic community and from human rights groups around the world.

Since his rise to power in 1981, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has avoided classifying any anti-Coptic attack as part of a larger sectarian struggle within the country. His critics however, have long said his policies or lack thereof contribute greatly to the anti-Christian climate within the country.

Although freedom of religion is guaranteed in Egypt’s constitution, Islam is the official state religion. In public schools, the Quran is used to teach Arabic.

On Jan. 21, Mubarak made an uncharacteristically strong statement about the shootings to MENA, the government-run news agency.

“The criminal act in Nag Hammadi has bled the hearts of Egyptians,” he said. “I hasten to affirm that the reasonable people of this nation, and its religious leaders and thinkers … bear the greater responsibility to contain discord and ignorance and blind fanaticism and to confront the despicable sectarian strife that threatens the unity of our society.”

Despite Mubaraks’s comments, the government has characterized the attack as either a random criminal act or as one done in reaction to a November incident in which a 21-year-old Christian man allegedly raped a 12-year-old Muslim girl.

In an interview with BBC Arabic, Dr. Fathi Sourour, head of the Egyptian Parliament, said, “The Nag Hammadi shooting of Christians on Christmas Eve was a single criminal act, with no sectarian dimensions.” He added that the crime was “prompted by the ‘death’ of a Muslim girl as a result of being raped by a Copt.”

Later, commenting on a report about the incident, he described the shootings as “a clash between two brothers living in one home.”

Copts, however, have a starkly different impression of the shooting.

Georgette Qillini, a Coptic member of the Egyptian Parliament, described the attack as “a purely sectarian crime and by no means an individual criminal attack,” the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported.

Ibtessam Habib, another Coptic Parliament member, agreed that “sectarian rather than personal motives lie behind the Nag Hammadi attack.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

EGYPT: CHRISTIANS ARRESTED, SHOPS LOOTED IN VILLAGE

Funeral incident leads to disproportionate response from Muslim mobs, police.

ISTANBUL, November 21 (Compass Direct News) – Authorities in an Egyptian village arrested 50 Coptic Christians, whose shops were then looted, to pacify Muslims following violence that erupted on Nov. 4 over a Christian boy’s unwitting break with custom.

Muslim villagers attacked the homes and shops of Coptic Christians in violence-prone Tayyiba, a town with 35,000 Christians and 10,000 Muslims, after 14-year-old Copt Mina William failed to dismount his donkey as a funeral procession passed.

William was watching the procession in Tayibba, 220 kilometers (137 miles) south of Cairo, with Nathan Yaccoub, also 14. William’s failure to dismount violated a local custom of showing respect, Copts United reported, and members of the procession reportedly beat him before completing the procession. William suffered minor injuries.

After the funeral procession, the processional members began throwing stones at the homes of local Copts and attacking their shops before police broke up the crowd with tear gas.

A priest said members of the procession did not attack the youths for showing disrespect but as an excuse to lash out against the community’s Christians for a previous episode of sectarian violence.

“These two children with the donkey didn’t know about the traditions,” said Father Metias Nasr, a Cairo-based priest with connections in areas south of the capital. “The Muslims there were angry about the last case of violence and wanted to create a new problem with these two children there.”

When the violence began, police presence increased significantly in the city. But rather than quell the unrest, police reportedly made matters worse for the Christians. After breaking up the crowd, officers detained 50 Copts and 10 Muslims.

A source told Compass that police arrested a disproportionate amount of Christians to create a false sense of equanimity and to pressure the Christians into “reconciliation” with the attackers so the Copts would not prosecute them. The arrested Christians have since been released.

In the two weeks since the attacks and looting, the increased police force in the village has harassed Copts through intimidation, “fines” and racketeering. Police have taken an estimated $50,000 from village Copts, the source said.

Once police lifted the curfew, Coptic shopkeepers returned to their stores to discover that they had been looted. Sources said the perpetrators were “supply inspectors,” local government inspectors who do quality control checks on goods. They gained access by smashing locks and doors of the shops.

The sources said supply inspectors plundered grocery stores, a poultry shop, an electronics store and a pharmacy.

According to Coptic weekly Watani, looters stole nearly $2,000 worth of goods from grocer Bishara Gayed. Another victim of the looting, an owner of a poultry shop who declined to give his name, blamed supply inspectors for running off with his stock.

A local clergyman condemned the violence.

“It is unreasonable that a mistake by some 14-year-old should lead to all that rampage,” a village Coptic priest known as Father Augustinus told Watani. “Something ought to be done to halt all this.”

 

Orphanage Bulldozed

Numerous instances of sectarian violence have struck Tayyiba in the last few months.

Last month a Coptic Christian was killed over a dispute with a Muslim who wanted to buy his house. Violence escalated, resulting in damaged storefronts, 48 arrests and injuries sustained by three Christians and a Muslim.

Such quarrels typically arise from land ownership issues. A Coptic source told Compass that Christians in Tayyiba are generally wealthier than their Muslim counterparts, often leading to resentment.

Tayyiba was stable at press time, though the town is considered to be continually in danger of religious violence flaring. This situation is common throughout Egypt, Fr. Nasr told Compass.

“The village is like anywhere in Egypt,” he said. “In every place in Egypt we can say that in one minute everyone can be destroyed by fanatics, sometimes through the encouragement of security [forces].”

The Coptic Church has faced recent difficulties in other Egyptian cities, with government officials attempting to obstruct their religious activities. On Wednesday (Nov. 19), city officials in Lumbroso, Alexandria destroyed an unfinished but recently furnished Coptic orphanage owned by Abu-Seifein Church and worth 6 million Egyptian pounds (US$1 million).

Officials claimed the building did not have a license, although church leaders said the demolition came on orders from the religiously zealous Islamic mayor. Ali Labib, former head of police and state security in Alexandria, in his two-year tenure as mayor has refused license applications for new church construction or rebuilding, said a Cairo-based Coptic priest who requested anonymity.

The priest said the orphanage was only able to obtain a license because it was issued before Labib’s tenure.

Islam is a growing presence in Egypt’s public sphere. While the government has attempted to crack down on extremists, Islamic civil groups that have drawn widespread support by offering cheap medical assistance and private lessons to school children include the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization with jihad in its credo that has been accused of violence.

The Muslim Brotherhood is well regarded by the average Egyptian, who equates the government with autocracy, corruption and repression, author and intellectual Tarek Heggy reportedly said. Over the last four decades, the Muslim Brotherhood has introduced its brand of fundamentalist Islam into Egyptian schools, mosques and media, he added.

Egypt’s ethnic Christians, known as Copts, belong to the Orthodox Church and number 12 million among the country’s 79 million inhabitants. There are smaller groups of Catholics and Protestants.  

Report from Compass Direct News

MELBOURNE SURVIVE SOMEHOW: The Season’s Best team Marches On

After loosing to the New Zealand Warriors last week, the Melbourne Storm were facing elimination if they lost in tonight’s game against the Brisbane Broncos. The winner would be through to play the Cronulla Sharks next week in order to reach the Grand Final.

Last night saw the Warriors survive to fight another day and they will play the Manly Sea Eagles next week in order to reach the Grand Final.

Having trailed Brisbane all night, right through until the final seconds of the game, Melbourne managed to capitalise on a Brisbane mistake and score with only seconds to play. Melbourne had fought back from 12 – 0 down at half time to be trailing 14 – 12 with only seconds to play.

Somehow, having made it back deep into the Brisbane half, the Storm managed to score a try giving them an amazing 16 – 14 victory.

Earlier in the second half it appeared that Melbourne had scored a miracle try to hit the lead, only to have it disallowed and for Brisbane to be given a penalty instead. Replays suggested the ruling may have been correct, though the replays were in no way conclusive.

Brisbane were of course shattered by the late try, having already been convinced that they were about to win the game and progress to the next match. But it wasn’t to be and the season’s best team marches on and a possible defence of last year’s premiership title is still a possibility.