Persecution of Copts Copts complain that the police do not respond when crimes are committed against them. Copts also have little representation in government, leading them to fear there is little hope of progress. In 1981, President Anwar Sadat, internally exiled the Coptic Pope Shenouda III accusing him of fomenting inter-confessional strife. Sadat then chose five Coptic bishops and asked them to choose a new pope. They refused, and in 1985 President Hosni Mubarak restored Pope Shenouda III. The government and other Egyptian sources blame tribal behavior in rural Egypt for much of the violence. During Mubarak's regime (following that of Anwar Sadat),
History of Egypt under Anwar Sadat allowing it to publish a monthly magazine, al-Dawa, which appeared regularly until September 1981 (although he did not allow the group's reconstitution). In 1971, the concentration camps where Islamists were held were closed, and the regime began to gradually release the imprisoned Muslim Brothers, though the organisation itself remained illegal; the last of those still behind bars regained their freedom in the general amnesty of 1975. Sadat also considered Islamists, particularly al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, a "useful counterweight" to his Marxist and Arab leftist opposition, student groups being particularly vocal and active. From 1973 to 1979 al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya grew (in part with