Egypt: Christian Girls Kidnapped and ‘Sold’

Two teenage Coptic girls, cousins, were recently kidnapped and then “sold” in Minya, Egypt—the same region where a Coptic church was recently attacked and desecrated. I tried to find this story in English-language media and, as expected, found nothing, except for one report in Al-Masry Al-Youm titled “Clashes between police and Coptic protesters in Minya”—as if that’s the important story (as usual, the media prefers headlines portraying harried Christian minorities as equally culpable as their Muslim persecutors, thereby justifying use of the preferred phrase, “sectarian strife“).

At the end of the Al-Masry Al-Youm report, we get a trailing sentence alluding to “claims” that two Christian girls “were abducted by Muslims and forced to convert to Islam” as the reason why Copts were demonstrating and clashing with the police in the first place.

… The two girls, Christine Azat (aged 16) and Nancy Magdi (aged 14) were on their way to church Sunday, June 12, when they were seized. Their abductors demanded $200,000 Egyptian pounds for their release. The people of the region quickly put their savings together and came up with the ransom money; but when they tried to give it to the kidnappers, they rejected it, saying they had already “sold” the girls off to another group which requires $12 million Egyptian pounds to return them.

via Egypt: Christian Girls Kidnapped and ‘Sold’ | FrontPage Magazine.

Should I expect a worldwide condemnation of this? 😡

Found here.

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Egypt: Islamist cleric accuses Coptic Church of "being a State within the State", stockpiling weapons

AINA.org:

On September 15, Qatar-owned Al-Jezirah TV broadcast a program called Without Limits, presented by moderator Ahmad Mansour, who hosted the Islamist Dr. Selim el-Awah, former Secretary-General of the World Council of Muslim Scholars, which has stunned and enraged Copts inside and outside of Egypt. “El-Awah is simply threatening Copts that the forthcoming chaos after Mubarak dies will see mass violence against the Copts,” says Magdy Khalil, Coptic activist and head of Middle East Freedom Forum.

The program alleged the Church has its own militia and hides weapons and ammunition in monasteries and churches, preparing for a war “against the Muslims.” el-Awah said that “Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause,” and the Church gets weapons from Israel. He cited as evidence an incident in mid-August, in which the son of a priest in Port Said, Mr. Joseph El-Gabalawy, was falsely accused of importing weapons from Israel. Although he was cleared of charges and released, as the imported goods were children’s fireworks from China and did not belong to him, he is still detained by State Security.

The television program also charged the Church of concealing Muslim converts to Christianity, besides abducting and torturing Christian converts to Islam. Out of the thousands of Christian woman who converted to Islam, willingly or unwillingly, el-Awah mentioned only two wives of priests whom he claimed converted to Islam and consequently were imprisoned in monasteries, Wafa Constantine and Mary Abdallah. Speaking on the latest crisis over Camelia Shehata, about whom Muslims fabricated rumors of her conversion to Islam, he said that she never converted to Islam and was handed over by State Security to her two married sisters (AINA 11-1-2015).

The nearly two-hour program went on to accuse the Coptic Church of being a “State within the Egyptian State,” allegedly taking advantage of the weakness of the present regime, behaving as if it is above the law. The Church was also accused of making an “inheritance” deal with the regime to support President Mubarak’s son in succeeding his father as president in exchange for benefits.

…In a Middle East Freedom Forum press release on September 20, Magdy Khalil said that what Dr. Selim el-Awah said “amounts to incitement to murder and ethnic cleansing of a minority, which are crimes in Egyptian and international law” and if Al-Awah’s words of hate and incitement are overlooked by the Egyptian government, “this would mean that they are partners in these crimes.” The Forum invited national lawyers, Muslims and Christians, to join its campaign for the prosecution of Dr. el-Awah for crimes of incitement.

Read it all!

Flag from Wikipedia.

Egypt: "Is it possible for Coptic Christians to get justice in court?", US religious freedom watchdog asks

Image via WikipediaAINA.org:

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has called on Egypt‘s government to ensure the resumption of the trial of three men charged with the Christmas Eve murders of seven people in a small southern Egypt town.
Since February, court proceedings have been postponed numerous times, and USCIRF is pressing the government to ensure that Saturday’s scheduled trial go on as planned.
“Justice delayed is justice denied,” remarked USCIRF chair Leonard Leo, whose agency makes policy recommendations to the U.S. president, secretary of state, and congress with respect to matters involving international religious freedom.
“Is it possible for Coptic Orthodox Christians to get justice in the Egyptian court system?” he asked.
On Jan. 6, as Coptic Christians prepared to observe Christmas Day, gunmen traveling in a car opened fire in a shopping district in the town of Nagaa Hammadi and later in front of the southern Egyptian town’s main church as worshipers emerged from midnight mass.
The shooting resulted in the deaths of six Christians and one Muslim security guard, who was assigned to protect the church.

Background:
Violence against Christian Copts on Christmas.
Naga Hammadi massacre, commented by Egyptian bloggers.

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