Sectarianism and Terrorism: The Libya Beheadings and ISIS Violence Against Egypt’s Copts

Abstract

This chapter studies a grave incident of violence against Egyptian Copts in 2015-namely the beheading by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of migrant laborers in Sirte, Libya-to explore the inextricable entanglements of terrorism beyond Egypt to sectarianism within Egypt. While counter-terrorist activities by the Egyptian state directed attention to sources of violence abroad in Libya, it also reinforced authoritarian structures of sectarian division in Egypt. This chapter examines how the Libya beheadings invoked the Coptic Church and its partnership with the Egyptian security state. This includes a focus on two conversion scandals that prompted a national and global controversy about the Coptic Church's alleged violations throughout the Islamic world. Moreover, the sectarian aftermath of the scandals attested to the Coptic community's vulnerability under the Egyptian security state. The chapter then turns to the commemorative and local aspects of evaluating violence in the Coptic Church and the memory culture that emerged.