While the tension between Christian minorities and Muslims in Egypt simmers, the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday called for unity among the two religious groups.

During a meeting of youth leaders and local officials in the southern town of Aswan, Mubarak said, "We must not put any scope for differences between Muslim and Christian or Christian and Muslim, as some foreigners allege, to create a separation between the two sides."

"There is no difference between us at all. We are Egyptians," he emphasised.

"Christians are not a minority in Egypt, they are Egyptian by origin and birth."

The Coptic Orthodox Church is Egypt's largest Christian denomination. Copts represent approximately 10 percent of Egypt's 70 million people and generally live in harmony with Muslims. However, the unusual unrest between Christians and Muslims in Egypt has now continued for more than one month, casting a gloom over the celebration of the Orthodox Christmas on 7th January.

Sources say that the clash was triggered by the alleged forced conversion of the wife of a Coptic priest from the west Delta village. Hundreds of Coptic Christians then gathered at Cairo's Orthodox Cathedral and held a five-day demonstration. All 34 Christian campaigners were arrested. Some 55 people had been injured, including police, during the demonstration.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians have historically been reported as experiencing persecution from the state. Amid the clash between Christians and Muslims, Pope Shenouda III, the supreme authority within the Coptic Orthodox Church, retreated to the Anba Bishoi monastery in Wadi Natrun for all the grievances of Coptic. He lamented the bureaucratic difficulties over church-building; forced conversions to Islam, particularly in Upper Egypt; and a general, unofficial policy of anti-Christian discrimination by the state.

In December, cases of violence were reported when a number of local Copts attempted to build a church without official permission.

"Copts are suffering from being denied their basic right to build places of worship by discriminatory legislation that makes it easier for Muslims to build mosques than Christians to build churches," said Youssef Sidhom, the editor of the Coptic newspaper Watani.

Prominent Coptic thinker Rafiq Habib was quoted as saying in the state press, "The government has actually given church (officials) a right that is not theirs."