Egyptian Christians live precarious lives, at the mercy of Muslim authorities who are often eager to brutalize them, in line with their Islamic supremacist assumptions and world view — and when they do, the Christians have no recourse.

“Police crime shocks, angers Egyptians,” by Nader Shukry and Rehab Gamal, Watani International, November 19, 2016 (thanks to Maged):

The death of 54-year-old Magdy Makeen who was tortured and killed in the police station in the Cairo district of al-Ameeriya has sent shock and anger waves through Egypt.

Makeen, a Copt, earned his living selling fish on his horse cart. His cousin, Yusri Attiya, told Watani’s Rehab Gamal that the family was informed of his death by Zaitoun Hospital on Monday 14 November at 8am. “We rushed to the hospital where we found his body covered with a sheet and kept under strict security. They got a coffin from a nearby mosque and put the body inside and moved him to the morgue.”

Mr Attiya says that once the body was uncovered at the morgue, it was very obvious Makeen had been brutally tortured before he died. His body was full of bruises.

The family got to know the details from two men who had been with Makeen the day before. They said they were with Makeen as he drove his horse cart. He accidentally hit a police car that was passing by. The police officer in the car, Captain Karim Magdy, shouted obscenities at Makeen who retaliated by shouting back insults. The verbal fight escalated, Makeen drove away to escape the police, but they caught him and took him and the two other men who were with him to the police station of al-Ameeriya.

“How did you know these details,” Watani asked Mr Attiya, “if the two men are still detained by the police? Were you allowed to see them?” Mr Attiya said they got their information through the lawyer who also said the two men had been tortured by the police. Makeen died after two hours of brutal torture, they said.

The police story goes that the three men on the horse cart were selling drugs and the police was chasing them. The police car hit the horse cart during the chase and Makeen lost his life. The police said they found 2000 tablets of narcotics in the cart. Watani asked Mr Attiya how could he be so sure that this was not true? “Makeen was a very poor man,” Mr Attiya said. “Could a drug dealer be so poor? He always enjoyed a good reputation among his neighbours and all who knew him. But all this is besides the point; if Makeen was a drug dealer he should have been prosecuted according to the law, not tortured to death.

“Had there really been a collision that killed Makeen as the police said, would the cart had remained intact? We went to feed the horse where the police kept him and found him safe and sound and the cart intact.”

Mr Attiya insisted the family did not wish to turn the incident into a tool which the media can use for sensationalism or political manipulation, and this is why they had not been talking to the media. “But we insist that justice should be served,” he said. “The police officer involved in the crime has already been suspended, and the prosecution has demanded a speedy after-death report. We are comfortable with that.”

Th [sic] Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar has suspended Captain Karim Magdy pending investigation in the case….