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From: heldeib@gmu90x.UUCP (Hany Eldeib)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast,news.groups,soc.culture.arabic,soc.culture.indian,soc.rights.human,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Lots of Replies (And Reference for D.)
Message-ID: <2347@gmu90x.UUCP>
Date: 4 Oct 89 14:11:04 GMT
References: <2647@cpoint.UUCP>
Reply-To: heldeib@gmu90x.UUCP (Hany Eldeib)
Followup-To: talk.politics.mideast
Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Va.
Lines: 24

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