Category: Coptic Oppression

Egypt: “Forced Islamization of Christian Conscripts in the Egyptian Army”

Egypt: “Forced Islamization of Christian Conscripts in the Egyptian Army”
— AINA reports: “Mistreatment of Christian conscripts in the Egyptian army, including beatings, psychological harassment and torture, at the hands of radical Muslim officers to force them to convert to Islam is widespread, but is rarely reported by conscripts for fear of reprisals.”

Egypt: “Coptic Family Forced to Surrender Woman Rescued in Egypt”

Egypt: “Coptic Family Forced to Surrender Woman Rescued in Egypt”
— COMPASS news reports:
— ”  State Security Investigations (SSI) forces in Egypt arrested, abused and then extorted money from a Coptic Christian for rescuing his daughter from her Muslim husband, who was holding her against her will in Alexandria, according to sources in Egypt.”
— “Security forces also arrested 10 people in Alexandria and tortured them in an attempt to find those involved in the rescue. Authorities are preparing to make a new wave of arrests, the sources said.”
— “On Sept. 30, they said, the only daughter of Gamal Labib Hanna called home and asked her family to save her from her Muslim husband. How Hanna’s daughter, Myrna Gamal Hanna, came to marry Mohamad Osama Hefnawy is disputed, but sources said the now-20-year-old woman was 19 and under the age of marital consent when she and Hefnawy were wed 10 months ago.”
— “According to Egyptian civil law, a woman under the age of 21 has to have approval of her father or another male member of her family if the father is deceased. In Myrna Gamal Hanna’s case, no such approval was given.  Moreover, sources said, the woman’s future father-in-law was inexplicably allowed to stand in place of her father in approving the marriage, in violation of Egyptian law.”
— “Later, sources said, Hefnawy and his father converted the young woman to Islam. The sources said that the elder Hanna went to Hefnawy’s apartment on Oct. 1 to get his daughter. En route he passed a cafe where he enlisted the help of Rafaat Girges Habib and at least four other men.”
— “At the apartment, Hefnawy attacked the Copts with a metal pole but Hanna was able to retrieve his daughter, who was six months pregnant. He and his wife hid her at an undisclosed location. After the rescue, Hefnawy and his neighbors filed a report with local police and the SSI, a powerful Interior Ministry agency accused of various human rights violations. Soon after, Hanna’s brothers, one brother-in-law and his mother-in-law were rounded up, charged with abduction and detained.”
— “According to sources in Egypt, at least one of the family members was tortured until Hanna turned himself in. Authorities also ransacked his apartment.”
— “The sources said security forces pressured Hanna until he agreed not only to hand his daughter back to Hefnawy but also to give him several thousand dollars.”
— “‘Cases like this are very common, they happen every day,’ said Rasha Noor, an Egyptian human rights activist and journalist living outside of Egypt. ‘That’s usually what happens when families try to rescue daughters from their kidnappers in most of these kinds of cases.'”
— “As part of terms forced upon Hanna, he is not allowed to see his daughter unless he meets her in a police station and is accompanied by SSI officer Essam Shawky. Additionally, phone calls to his daughter will be monitored.  ‘Once [a woman] becomes a Muslim, you can– “t get her back,’ Noor said.”
— “Hanna and the members of his family were released on Oct. 2, but soon after authorities began seeking Habib. Police broke into Habib’s plumbing shop and demolished it.”
— “On Saturday (Oct. 3) they rounded up at least 10 people, most members of Habib’s immediate family. Security forces tortured the men, but sources said Habib’s brother, Romany, bore the brunt of the brutality. When he was released the next day, they said, his clothes and those of the others were smeared with blood.”
— “Habib and at least four other people remain in hiding in Egypt. Sources said authorities will make a third round of arrests in an attempt to flush him out.”

Egypt: Christian Arrested for Distributing Tracts in Egypt

Egypt: Christian Arrested for Distributing Tracts in Egypt
— COMPASS reports
— “An Egyptian Christian arrested in Cairo for handing out gospel leaflets and held in prison illegally for four days has been released, the freed Protestant Copt told Compass.”
— “Abdel Kamel, 61, was arrested on Sept. 23 in downtown Cairo for handing out copies of a Christian leaflet. As they arrested him, police told Kamel it was ‘unlawful’ to hand out religious information on public roads. When Kamel countered that Muslims commonly hand out Islamic literature, police told him it was “more unlawful” for Christians. Kamel also didn’t have his identification card with him.”
— “Nabil Ghobreyal, an attorney who worked to gain Kamel’s release, said there is no law in Egypt forbidding the distribution of religious material.”
— “Police handcuffed Kamel, put him into a police car and seized his leaflets. Authorities then took him to a police station for interrogation. While in custody, Kamel said, he remained in handcuffs for hours, was thrown to the ground, spit upon and threatened with violence.”

“Egyptian Police Arrest Christian Father for Attempting to Free Kidnapped Daughter”

— AINA reports: “Egyptian Police Arrest Christian Father for Attempting to Free Kidnapped Daughter”

— “At dawn on Saturday, October 3, 2009, Egyptian State Security forces arrested a group of Christian Copts in different parts of the city in Alexandria, after severely assaulting them in front of their neighbors. Their wives were also arrested, but because of intense objection protests by neighbors at the way they were handled and of the screams of their terrified children, they were released. The men who were arrested are relatives of Rafaat Girges Habib, a man who helped a Coptic father free his kidnapped daughter from her Muslim husband’s home. The arrests continued until Habib turned himself in to the police.”

— “Egypt4Christ, based in Alexandria, reported that what started this incident was a telephone call on September 30 from Myrna, the only daughter of Coptic accountant Gamal Labib Hanna, in which she begged him to come and save her from her Muslim husband, Mohamad Hefnawy.”

— “Myrna was abducted 10 months ago, forced to convert to Islam and married by a ‘customary marriage contract’ by Osama Hefnawy to his son Mohammad. Being 19 years old at the time, Myrna was under-age for a girl to be married. According to Islamic Sharia a woman cannot get married before she reaches the age of 21 years; she can only get married before through a mandate from her father or uncles alone. Those requirements can be waived for the benefit of a non-relative only through a court ruling, which was not obtained in Myrna’s case.”

— “On their way to free his daughter, the father, together with his brother and brother-in-law, passed by a cafe near St. George’s Church, Sidi Bishr, where Rafaat Girges Habib, a plumber who has done jobs in the father’s home, volunteered to accompany them to bring Myrna back.”

— “As they went to the apartment where Myrna was held, they were met by Osama Hefnawy, father of Mohamed and five other Muslims, who threatened them. A struggle ensued, and Myrna left with her father. She was taken away to an establishment dealing with abduction cases like hers, especially that it was found out that she was six months pregnant.”

— “Osama Hefnawy immediately filed a report with the police and the State Security Headquarters in Al-Farana, Alexndri downtown. Myrna’s paternal uncles were arrested and charged with abduction, together with her father. Myrna’s family apartment was broken into and the shop of Rafaat Girges Habib was completely demolished by the police.”

— “Myrna’s father was forced to go to the police station to negotiate the release of his relatives and ‘for matters to be resolved amicably’ as he was told by Lieutenant Ahmed Mekki, of the Police Department of Investigation, who contacted him on his cell phone.”

— “Myrna’s uncles were forced to go and bring her back to the police station, where she was handed over to Osama Hefnawy. In addition the police took the necessary commitments from her relatives not to harass him. Coptic father Labib was released Friday morning.”

— “Lawyers reported to Egypt4Christ that the arrested Copts were tortured and their clothes were smeared with blood, especially Romany, brother of Rafaat Girges Habib.”

Myrna Hanna

Egypt: “Muslim Convert to Christianity Prevented From Leaving Egypt”

Egypt: “Muslim Convert to Christianity Prevented From Leaving Egypt”
— AINA reports: “Egyptian authorities have prevented Maher El-Gowhary, a Muslim-born Christian convert, from leaving the country. He was detained at Cairo Airport. His passport confiscated and he was advised that he is barred from traveling on orders from a ‘higher authority’.”
— “Maher and his 15-year-old daughter, Dina, who also embraced Christianity, were traveling to China on 17th September 2009, on a two-week holiday.”

— ICC report

Egypt: Mourners Protest Islamic Attacks on Copts in Egypt

Egypt: Mourners Protest Islamic Attacks on Copts in Egypt
— COMPASS reports:
— “A funeral for a Coptic Christian gruesomely killed on a village street north of Cairo by a Muslim assailant last week turned into a protest by hundreds of demonstrators in Egypt.”
— “Galal Nasr el-Dardiri, 35, attacked 63-year-old Abdu Georgy in front of the victim’s shop in Behnay village the afternoon of Sept. 16, according to research by a local journalist. Other Copts watched in horror as El-Dardiri stabbed Georgy five times in the back, according to interviews by Gamal Gerges, a reporter for newspaper Al-Youm al-Sabeh.”
— “As Georgy fell to the ground, El-Dardiri took his knife and stabbed him four times in the stomach. He then disemboweled him, slit his throat and began sawing off his head, according to Gerges. The Rev. Stephanos Aazer, a Coptic priest who knew Georgy and saw photographs of his mutilated body, said the victim’s head was attached to the body by a small piece of flesh.”
— “After killing Georgy, El-Dardiri got on a motorcycle and rode 30 minutes to another town, where he found Coptic shopkeeper Boils Eid Messiha, 40, and stabbed him twice in the stomach, according to Gerges. El-Dardiri immediately left the scene, went to nearby Mit Afif and allegedly attacked Hany Barsom Soliman. Soliman, a Copt in his mid-20s, managed to fight him off.
— “Messiha was taken to a hospital where he has been operated on at least five times. He remained in intensive care at press time. Soliman suffered lacerations to his arms but was otherwise unharmed.”
— “On Thursday afternoon (Sept. 17), about 1,000 people gathered at Georgy’s funeral to protest the killing and assaults on Coptic Christians. Protestors chanted that Georgy’s ‘blood was not [spilled] in vain’ as they carried signs that read, ‘Where are you, government? The terrorists are going to kill us.'”
— “Aazer and several other priests participated in the demonstration. Aazer, of the Behnay area, confirmed that police had been monitoring local Copts and even tracking telephone conversations of clergy.”
— “El-Dardiri was arrested on Thursday (Sept. 17) in Cairo and has been charged with murder. It was unclear when he would appear in court.”
— “Ibrahim Habib, chairman of United Copts Great Britain, said Egypt has encouraged the type of ‘radicalization’ that has led to such attacks”.
— “It is the Egyptian government’s responsibility now to stop the persecution and victimization of its Coptic minority by Islamic fundamentalists,’ he said. ‘The persecution and victimization of the Christians in Egypt has been persistent for three decades and recently escalated to a worrying tempo.'”
— “Habib added that Egypt needs to root out extremists from government agencies, ‘including the Egyptian police, which frequently show complacency or collusion with the Islamists against the peaceful Christians.'”