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Egypt Retracts Report on Paper Closures Over Monastery Sex Scandal
LUXOR, Egypt, June 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egypt's national news agency contradicted Tuesday a statement by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid that two newspapers had been temporarily shut for publishing graphic stories about an excommunicated monk's alleged sexual affairs, sparking violent demonstrations by the Coptic Christian minority.
Ebeid had told reporters in Luxor, southern Egypt, earlier Tuesday, that President Hosni Mubarak, as military governor, had decreed the closure of Al-Nabaa newspaper and its affiliate publications "until the current investigations are over."
Police arrested the former monk last week in Assiut, 180 miles south of Cairo, and brought him to Cairo for questioning about allegations he lured women into having sex with him inside the monastery and then blackmailed them with videos of their alleged encounters.
Some victims allegedly paid as much as $104,000 or nine pounds of gold and jewelry in exchange for the videos.
But the state-owned Middle East News Agency (MENA), which had carried Ebeid's statements, later said without explanation that "the report of the closure of the two newspapers are null and void, because of a misunderstanding of the prime minister's remarks."
The head of the Coptic Church, Pope Shenuda III, said he had filed a libel suit against the papers, which published front-page pictures over the weekend of the bearded former monk in compromising positions with a naked woman.
The stories have heightened tensions between Egypt's small but powerful Christian population and its Muslim majority, Western news agencies said.
Ebeid told reporters that Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, as military governor, had decreed the closure of Al-Nabaa newspaper and its affiliate publications "until the current investigations are over."
The prime minister said the decision was taken "because of what the paper published and the effect it had on national unity in Egypt and public morals."
The editor Mamdouh Mahran was also charged with sedition. The head prosecutor Hesham Bedawi also charged Mahran with "undermining public security and social peace" and "incitement against a Christian sect in Egypt and attempts to harm its reputation," judicial officials told news agencies.
Copies of Al-Nabaa and its affiliate Akher Khabar were confiscated on court orders after publishing the story under the headline "monastery turned into brothel."
Pope Shenuda asked the government to take "a firm position (against the papers) to heal the Christians' wounds" in an interview with Egyptian state television aired on Tuesday.
"To denounce one of the Copts' greatest monasteries with banner headlines saying it has become a den of debauchery, who can accept such a thing?" the pope said.
"Horrible details of impossible things were published, lies on top of lies which could never happen, and in this way I believe it stirred up a kind of civil strife for pure material gain," the pope said.
The church released a statement saying the monk attacked in the articles had been expelled five years ago from al-Moharraq monastery in Asyut in southern Egypt for "abandoning the traditions of the church and monasticism," without elaborating on his conduct.
Pope Shenuda said all his "mistakes" were committed outside the monastery, and he demanded the government to make it a criminal offense for non-priests to wear the robes of priesthood.
Coptic Christians believe that Jesus Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary, o have spent six months at the site of al-Moharraq monastery during their flight from Egypt in order to escape the clutches of King Herod, who wished to kill Jesus.
The pope also urged calm among the Coptic Christian community after six policemen were hurt Sunday night outside their cathedral in Cairo when a demonstration attended by thousands of Copts turned violent.
The state security prosecution service interrogated the editor-in-chief of the two papers, Mahran, for three days before releasing him Tuesday on 10,000 Egyptian pounds (2,600 dollars) bail.
The prosecution is accusing him of disturbing the peace, publishing scandalous pictures and of matters, which led to the humiliation of a religious group and lit "the fires of civil strife."
Mahran is also charged with publishing information about a case under investigation.
He could face as much as 24 years in jail.
Mahran has proclaimed his innocence and said he printed the articles in order "to alert the church and its religious leaders to what was happening especially as Christianity and Islam stand side by side," a prosecution source quoted him as saying.
Around 150 Christians demonstrated again on Tuesday at the cathedral, denouncing the paper and waving crosses and pictures of the Virgin Mary.
The Copts, whom the government says account for five percent of Egypt's 65 million people, have become vocal in denouncing the government and the authorities recently. Many say they can rely on U.S. backing for their pleas after the U.S sent several officials to Egypt to investigate allegations of discriminations against the Christian community.
The Copts claim the authorities discriminate against them in the state bureaucracy, police and army, education system, and other areas.
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