Editorial: Pakistan’s Daily State of Emergency

Last weekend’s general elections in Pakistan are significant for a variety of reasons. For the first time in the country’s history—and, unless the unexpected happens—there were will be a democratic transition of power from one civilian government to another one. The vote was the clearest demonstration of the country’s young, vibrant civil society and private media, which can trump political corruption and the ever-looming specter of militant violence. Despite Taliban threats to ...

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Copts’ Uneasy State Relations

“The Muslims and Copts are one hand” was one slogan that could be heard ringing out across Tahrir Square throughout the Egyptian revolution. More than two years later, a mob of Egyptian Muslims doused Copt Saber Helal with gasoline and set him on fire in a town north of Cairo. How times change—or not. In reality, the Tahrir Square unity was the aberration, not last week’s sectarian violence. Egypt’s Coptic community—comprising approximately ten percent of the overall populatio...

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