Egyptian rebel monk arrested over road dispute

Cairo: An Egyptian monk, excommunicated by the Coptic Church, has been arrested in a simmering road dispute with the government, local media reported on Friday.

Police arrested Bolis Al Rayani on Thursday to serve a total of 30-years in sentences related to different cases, including resisting authorities and seizing state-owned land, private newspaper Al Watan said, citing security sources.

Al Rayani is one of several monks, who staunchly oppose a government plan to build a major road running across part of a wall of the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Egypt’s Western Desert.

The Church backed the government’s plan and stripped six of the monks of their priesthood last year.

Al Rayani’s arrest reportedly came after the renegade monks set on fire a state-owned bulldozer involved in removing part of the wall of the monastery on Wednesday.

The demolished enclosure was later rebuilt by the monks.

Authorities accuse the monks of having illegally expanded the monastery by encroaching on a protected nature reserve. The encroachments were reportedly made during the chaos that followed Egypt’s 2011 uprising.

In previous remarks, Al Rayani said he had proposed other routes for the road to be constructed away from the wall of the monastery, but authorities refused all of them.

“The monks are ready to die rather than allowing the road to pass through the monastery wall,” the 48-year-old monk said, according to Al Masry Al Youm newspaper.

State authorities have shown no sign of a climbdown.

Wael Makram, governor of Fayyoum where the monastery is based, said this week that building the road would go ahead “according to the previously set plan”.

The contested route is part of a network of roads planned by the government of President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi across Egypt.

Christians account for around 10 per cent of Egypt’s predominantly Muslim 90 million population.

Al Sissi, who took office more than a year ago, is immensely popular with the country’s Christian minority.

They also backed him in 2013 when as an army chief led the overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.