Major Coptic leaders are condemning Mohamed Elibiary, an Obama administration Homeland Security adviser, for suggesting that Copts who raise awareness of anti-Christian violence in Egypt promote "Islamophobic" bigotry.
Elibiary sent out a series of tweets that Coptic leaders found offensive last month. The tweets appeared to chastise the Coptic community for lobbying on behalf of their relatives in Egypt. He targeted them because they had aligned themselves with conservative groups that he called "Islamophobic."
"VERY disturbing if true: bit.ly/18xotzi
US DHS adviser accuses #Coptic#Christians of inciting Muslims! #Speechless! Pls comment!" Bishop Angaelos, Coptic Pope Tawadros II's personal representative in the United Kingdom wrote in a Sept. 28 Twitter post.
Elibiary personally attacked Michael Meunier, president of Egypt's al-Haya Party, two days earlier after Meunier spoke with The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) about Elibiary's earlier offensive tweets against the Copts.
"Sad2c #Coptic@MichaelMeunier aid #Islamophobes anti US Muslim community agenda ....," Elibiary wrote.
Meunier denounced Elibiary's personal attack, saying the issue had nothing to do with Islamophobia – but that Elibiary threw out a straw man to protect the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood.
"If you look at him you can definitely see that he is a sympathizer of the Brotherhood," Meunier said. "If you are in the Brotherhood you don't have a card. The guy put up the sign for R4BIA [on his Twitter account], a symbol for people who burn churches and kill people."
Brotherhood defenders are trying to smear their critics as anti-Muslim bigots, rather than people concerned about Brotherhood violence and repression, Meunier said.
"He has a grudge against my activism, my spending two months in Washington, highlighting the vicious activities of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Elibiary initially defended sporting the R4BIA on his Twitter profile, saying "#R4BIA=#Freedom4ALL." But he relented to pressure Friday and removed it. "While I did remove #R4BIA twibbon as I updated my profile, my view & support of its human rights & pro democracy values continue. #AntiCoup," Elibiary wrote.
R4BIA takes its name from Cairo's Rabia ad-Alawiya Square, where hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood protesters were killed in armed clashes with Egyptian security forces in August.
The #R4BIA platform includes a litany of principles that run in open opposition to Western values. It invokes concepts such as: "pure martyrdom"; "unification of the Muslim World"; "the end of Zionists"; "the birth of a new movement for freedom and justice"; "justice for everyone against rotten Islamic values"; "the end of oil sheikhs"; and "the end of capitalists."
"Western concepts such as democracy, human rights, freedom, equality and right to life, often exercised in a double standard, have utterly collapsed in Palestine, Syria, Bosnia and lastly in Egypt. With the spirit of the Rabia sign, these and similar concepts will be reinterpreted based on Islamic principles," the section
"How did R4BIA emerge?" says. In a Twitter exchange with the IPT, Elibiary said that he has a nuanced view of the Muslim Brotherhood. But does his "nuance" include a private endorsement of the #R4BIA movement's stated goals?
Elibiary is not talking despite several invitations by the IPT on Twitter to sit down in person and talk about his views on R4BIA and other issues despite his challenge for dialog....