heldeib@gmu90x.UUCP (Hany Eldeib) (10/04/89)
Martillo wrote: >Hany Eldeib wrote: >>- The business about Mr. Wassef being arrested because he is Coptic is a >> bunch of crap. The most persecuted group of people in Egypt at the moment >> is Moslem fundamentalists, not Copts. > >This comment needs to be qualified. [a rather slik line of reasoning trying to show that Muslim Fundamentalists are suppressed but Copts are oppressed, etc. The fact remains that the likelihood that someone is arrested in Egypt because he is a Copt is much much less than the likelihood of being arrested because he is a Muslim. The ratio is about 1 to infinity if we compare Copts and Muslim fundamentalists. Mr. Martillo claimed that the Egyptian-American man was arrested partly for being a Copt etc. This claim is simply not supported by statistics or historical evidence. A slik argument may be neat but the facts of the matter do not provide any support for the claim made. All the fancy talk about "de facto" this or that can not be used to justify an unsupported allegation. Hany K. Eldeib George Mason University