Obama-linked Islamists Downplay Coptic Suffering on Social Media

Dalia Moghaed, credited with helping President Obama draft his June 2009 Cairo speech about American relations with the Islamic world, recently downplayed attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christians on a Facebook page.

More than 80 Coptic churches were burned by Brotherhood supporters after the Egyptian military’s crackdown last month on Muslim Brotherhood encampments in Cairo. A local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party appeared to sanction violence in retaliation for the Coptic Church’s backing of the Egyptian military.

Nonetheless, Mogahed pointed the finger at the Egyptian media.

“The Egyptian media took advantage of the Copts to achieve many personal/political gains, which has angered the West,” Mogahed said in a Sept. 22 post which appeared on the Facebook page of the Egyptian Americans for Democracy and Human Rights (EADHR).

The EADHR was founded by members of the Muslim American Society (MAS), which in turn was founded as an “overt arm” of the Egyptian Brotherhood.

Mogahed isn’t the only American Islamist tied to the Obama administration to slam the Copts on social media.

In a Sept. 15 Twitter post, Mohamed Elibiary, a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, accused American Coptic activists of fanning hatred of Islam.

“For>decade since 9/11 attack extremist American #Coptic activists have nurtured anti #Islam & anti #Muslim sentiments among AM RT wing,” Elibiary wrote.

In earlier tweets, Elibiary attacked American Copts for protesting against how their relatives in Egypt have been treated by the Islamists.

“Good read by @mwhanna1 on need to reform #Coptic activism in #US including stop promoting #Islamophobia,” Elibiary wrote Sept. 14.

“I think the Obama administration should be ashamed to have had someone like this in their administration,” said Michael Meunier, president of Egypt’s Al-Haya Party and a Coptic activist. “This underscores the thinking inside the Obama administration.”

Brotherhood groups in the United States and their supporters are lashing out at the Copts, who have been among the Muslim Brotherhood’s visceral critics, and dismiss their grievances as mere bigotry. Meunier charged that the Brotherhood is trying to slander the Copts to reduce their effectiveness.

“The Copts have nothing to be ashamed of. Morsi made the Copts’ lives’ hell, so they got together with the moderate Muslims to overthrow Morsi,” Meunier said. “The Muslim Brotherhood victimized the Copts, and now it wants to blame them.”

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