“This year there was an overlap between a Christian and Islamic holiday,” she explains. “So unfortunately it was the circumstances which normally do encourage those attacks. It was even doubled more than what it normally is — and Christians paid the cost for that.”

Evans tells OneNewsNow there’s a disconnect between what is being said on the national level and what’s being practiced on the local level.

“President [Abdel Fattah el-] Sisi … makes big, grand overtures saying ‘We’re promoting religious freedom, we’re going to legalize churches, we’re going to make all these changes and they’re going to help Coptic Christians’ — but those overtures never trickle down onto a local level,” she laments.

Local government officials want to see Christians further repressed, according to Evans. She is urging the national government to demand local authorities enforce the protection of religious freedom.

Source: Assyrian International News Agency