Islamistiska milismän i Benghazi har
bränt ned en koptisk kyrka och skadat
två koptiska präster, rapporterar AFP.
Minst ett femtiotal kristna med utländska
pass har gripits i Benghazi anklagade för
att bedriva illegal missionsverksamhet.
Tidigare har bl a en svensk medborgare
gripits för samma "brott".
Libyen tillämpar nu sedan statskuppen
sharialagstiftning.
**
Gunmen have attacked an Egyptian Coptic
church in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi,
assaulting two priests, the Libyan foreign
ministry said Sunday, days after dozens of
Egyptian Christians suspected of proselytizing
were arrested.
The Libyan foreign ministry said it "strongly
condemned Thursday's attack on the Egyptian
church... and the aggression towards Father
Paula Isaac and his deputy by the irresponsible
armed men," AFP reported.
(....)
Since the 2011 revolution that ousted the late
dictator Moammar Qaddafi, Libya's small Christian
minority has expressed fears over Islamic extremism,
especially with the rise of armed militias enforcing
their own law in the absence of central control.
A Libyan security official said on Friday that around
50 Egyptian traders who were suspected of
trying to convert Muslims -- something strictly
banned in Islam -- had been arrested in Ben-
ghazi on illegal immigration charges.
Four foreigners -- an Egyptian, a South African,
a South Korean and a Swede with a US passport
-- were also arrested in Libya's second city in
mid-February on suspicion of trying to convert
Muslims to Christianity.
In December, two Egyptians died in a blast
at a Coptic church in the Libyan coastal
