On January 6, as Coptic Christians left a church in the farming town of Nag Hammadi, 450km south of Cairo, three Muslim gunmen opened fire with machine guns and killed seven church members.
The Coptic Church celebrates Christmas on January 7 and those who were killed, and others who were injured, had been attending the church's Christmas Eve service.
March organiser Dr Albert Makary told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the incident was the 172nd terrorist attack on church members since 1972.
Christians in Egypt, he said, were treated as second-class citizens and too few of those responsible for "hate crimes" against Christians had been dealt with in the past.
"There was only one case where somebody got prosecuted. Many times justice doesn't prevail and people get away with it. Basically, we've had enough. It's not acceptable."
Reports from Nag Hammadi say the suspects were known as "thugs for hire", but their leader was not a "religious fanatic".
The shooting had been followed by riots and also by condemnation from Christian and Islamic leaders.
Dr Makary, a gynaecologist from Timaru, said those who were killed, and others who were injured, were in no way involved with acts of terrorism.
"They had done nothing wrong. They were in no conflict with anybody."
Saturday's march, with banners such as "killing in the name of God is a criminal act of terror", involved about a dozen of the 50 to 60 Coptic Christians living in Dunedin.
Marches took place elsewhere in New Zealand, and in the United States and Australia.
Dr Makary said Western nations had been "naive" in the way they had dealt with terrorism after 9/11.
The United States' approach cost billions of dollars and many lives but was merely "enlarging the circle of hate".
"Terrorism is a product of lack of understanding, lack of dialogue, injustice and extreme religious ideology. None of these can be sorted by bullets and firepower."
