Scottish Catholic Observer

Speaking to Italian magazine 30 Giorni, the Patriarch of Alexandria Cardinal Antonios Naguib (above) claims the attack was used to justify strengthening police controls throughout the country, describing its precedent in the 1980s and 1990s, where security forces used attacks against Christians to undermine opposition movements.

The attack was condemned throughout the world, with Pope Benedict XVI calling for more protection for religious minorities.

The Holy Father’s comments led then President Mubarak to recall its ambassador to the Vatican, Lamia Mekheimar, and for Al-Azhar University, Egypt’s most prestigious Islamic institution, to suspend dialogue with the Vatican. Egypt this week has announced it is to reinstate its ambassador to the Vatican.

In the same interview, Cardinal Naguib warned that Western withdrawal of economic and military aid in order to protect Egypt’s Christians would constitute ‘the greatest harm that can be done to the Christians themselves.’

“I am reassured by the fact of having seen something take place in these days that has not been seen for a long time: a concrete unity among the citizens, young and old, Christians and Muslims without distinction or discrimination,” the cardinal said. “Now everyone sees that those who foment divisions and conflicts with other Egyptians on the basis of religious differences actually aim to destroy this unity and to destabilise Egypt.”

Egyptian authorities today arrested the country’s former information minister and the chairman of state TV and radio on corruption allegations, security officials said.

The arrests of Anas al-Fiqqi and Osama el-Sheikh are the latest steps Egypt’s ruling generals have taken against prominent figures in the regime of Mr Mubarak, who handed power to the military when he stepped down February 11.