April 22 - Coptic Solidarity Day

H/T: OBL News

CAIRO (bikyamasr.com) - Canada has declared April 22 the annual day of solidarity with Coptic Christians, a leading Coptic organization in the United States reported on its website. Copts.com reported that the Canadian government will announce April 22 as an annual solidarity day with the Coptic Church.

According to the website, it will officially be called “Coptic Lobby Day” and will be the first event of its kind internationally.

In Cairo, Shereen Fahmy, a Coptic pharmacist, said that the move is not as positive as a number of Coptic groups abroad are making it out to be.

“We are struggling to be a part of Egyptian society here in Egypt and when groups abroad push for these kind of things, it can really do more harm than good, even when they mean well,” she said.

Fahmy added that in her time in the United States over the past few years, a lot of it was spent “debating with Copts who lived there that we are Arab and Egyptian and that only with Muslims can we have the change and get our rights where we want.”

Although she is skeptical of the national solidarity day in general, the idea itself is “interesting and will hopefully bring the discussion of Coptic issues to the forefront.”

According to the website, members of the Coptic community traveled to Ottawa to meet with the Canadian Parliament as a “step to strengthen relations” between the government and the Coptic Diaspora.

They met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Immigration Minister Jason Kenny and a representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a number of members of Parliament and the Senate.

The website added that the meeting dealt with various topics, including forms of “persecution of Copts in Egypt, asylum applications lodged by the Copts in Canada and the importance of maintaining the values and principles of Christianity in Québec, home to many members of the Coptic community, and the importance of integrating young people of the community in the political life of Canada.”