During Mass this past Sunday, an Islamic State suicide bomber made his way inside St. Peter and St. Paul's Coptic Church in Cairo and detonated his bomb, leaving 25 people, mostly women, dead. The bombing, the deadliest since the 2010 New Year's Eve bombing of the Two Saints Church in Alexandria, drew swift condemnations from governments around the world. But as much as such attacks remind the world of the plight of Copts, it is their daily encounter with discrimination and persecution that poses the greatest threat to their future.
Apart from Coptic women not wearing the veil and the cross most Copts proudly tattoo on their wrists, there are few differences in the physical appearances of Copts and Muslims in Egypt. Nor have the two communities lived in separate cities or regions, as is common in other Middle Eastern countries where the survival of ethnic and religious minorities has been deeply intertwined with geography.
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