Around 2000 Copts gathered on Wednesday in Tahrir Square to protest reports that an Egyptian army unit had attacked the Monastery of Saint Pishoy in the Nitrian Desert earlier on Wednesday.
Protesters said that a military unit using armored vehicles had demolished newly-built fences surrounding the old Coptic monastery. They claimed that the soldiers fired live bullets at monks. They added that two had been injured and transferred to the Anglo-American hospital in Cairo.
Al-Masry Al-Youm failed to independently verify the reports about the injured monks.
“The army told the monasteries to protect themselves, so the monks tried to build a fence after the release of prisoners from Wadi Natrun. Then the army starting attacking the monastery,” said Yasser Farag, 37, a Coptic engineer who went to the monastery after the attack.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has governed the country since the 11 February ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, said on its official page on Facebook that soldiers had removed “some walls that had been illegally built on the road and on land owned by the state.”
The SCAF denied claims that the armed forces had been involved in attacks on the monastery or that it had any intention to demolish the building due to its “belief in freedom and the sanctity of places of worship.”
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