Back to 'have your say'

Subject: Forced Conversion in Egypt
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 22:20:55 -0400
Celein Caesar

I have a small story down here but a very recent one.
A girl named Dimiana George Anwar from Sudan Shendi student in El Tekana
College Computer Science has disappeared since two months. The police was
informed of the accident and a hunt was made for her. The police came to
know about her hiding place but instruction from higher levels stoped the
investigations. Her name was changed to "Dalal George Anwar" and her
religion from Christianity to Islam by means of a responsible person in
the government. Her family asked from the police officer to arrest the
person who changed her identity papers but instruction again from higher
levels in the Gov. not to interogate him.
Her family is asking if she became a muslim of her own accord why she is
still hiding till now, which means that she was islamized by force. Isn't
this is terrorism.
Her Father is dead and her mother is the only means of support to the
family which consists of 5 girls.
To all people in the world who dislike terrorism please help this poor
family to find their daughter.
This is a good proof for persecution in Sudan inspite of their declaration
of equity and this is only an example.

16/10/02
Subject: EGYPTIAN SECURITY POLICE ARREST, HARASS LOCAL CHRISTIANS
From: "Mo Hanna" <mohanna123@copticdigest.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 02:26:54 -0400

Former Muslims Jailed in Cairo

by Barbara G. Baker


ISTANBUL, October 15 (Compass) -- A letter smuggled out of Cairo's Mazraa
Tora Prison last month confirmed that an Egyptian convert to Christianity
who disappeared five months ago has been imprisoned on criminal charges.

In a handwritten letter obtained by Compass last week, Hisham Samir Abdel
Latif Ibrahim, 26, confirmed that he had been arrested in early May by
Egyptian security police. According to the letter written on September 17
to a Coptic Christian cleric, Ibrahim has been accused of falsifying his
identity papers and reviling Islam.

Ibrahim said that after his arrest, he had been questioned for a total of 52
days in the Gaber Ibn Hayan and El Gehaz Madinet Nasser branches of the
State Security Investigation (SSI) in Cairo.

"I was told that a man called Adel had informed them about me," Ibrahim
wrote. He stated he had been interrogated daily by SSI officers, who named a
person they claimed had issued new Christian identity papers for him.

Born in Alexandria into a Muslim family, Ibrahim is believed to have
obtained Christian I.D. papers on the basis of a newly issued birth
certificate identifying him as Milad Mahrous Habib Agayby. Egyptian Muslims
are forbidden by law to change their religious identity, although open
incentives are offered to encourage Christian citizens to convert to Islam.

According to acquaintances in Cairo, Ibrahim became a Christian in 1996
through listening to the Christian radio program "Yanabi El Sahara"
(Fountains in the Desert).

In his letter, Ibrahim said he had appeared three times before a state
prosecutor while under arrest. The legal charges against him were filed
under Case No. 1092, initially opened in 2001, he said.

Ibrahim also reported that he had met or heard about two other former
Muslims also under arrest for converting to Christianity, both from Port
Said.

Ibrahim said Mohammed Hegazy, a Christian convert from Port Said, was being
detained in the Mazraa Tora prison with him. The Port Said man was accused
of insulting an officer of Egypt's security police, Ibrahim said, and was
scheduled to appear September 18 before a state prosecutor to answer the
charges.

Earlier this year, Hegazy published "Sherine's Laugh," a thin volume of 31
poems he had written in colloquial Arabic. In one of the poems entitled
"Ashraf Pasha," Hegazy recalled the severe mistreatment he had suffered at
the hands of Ashraf Ma'alouf, an SSI officer who reportedly arrested,
interrogated and tortured him for converting to Christianity.

Ibrahim also said he had been told by the prosecutor before whom he
appeared that a woman convert from Port Said, identified only as Sara, had
been arrested. "But I don't know if she is still detained or not," he wrote.


Coptic Family Under Related Attack

Before his disappearance on May 7, Ibrahim had been living with Shafik
Labeb Ishaq and his wife Violet, a Christian couple active in an evangelical
Coptic church in Cairo. Since March, the couple and their three daughters
have been subjected to repeated harassment by both security police and local
Muslim extremists.

An accountant for an Egyptian communications company, Ishaq confirmed that
several times during March security police officers summoned him and his
wife for interrogation, sometimes late at night or even at dawn. The police
also came knocking at their door at odd hours of the night, always claiming
to be searching for unknown individuals.

At the same time, the family received warning notes and dozens of obscene
telephone calls, threatening to kidnap and rape their youngest daughter
Sarah, 14. Repeated attempts were made by young Muslim men to convince Sarah
she should run away, leave her faith and become a Muslim.

Then on April 8, fanatic Muslims in the neighborhood managed to kidnap
Sarah for four days. Although her parents located her and forced the captors
to return their daughter, a similar attempt was made on July 28. Again on
August 16, a veiled Muslim woman tried to force her way into the home where
Sarah was staying.

To protect Sarah from being forcibly converted to Islam, Ishaq and his wife
obtained travel documents and sent her on August 27 to England, where she
remains in an undisclosed location until the rest of her family can leave
Egypt to join her.

"Sarah was exposed to danger," the Ishaq family's pastor confirmed in a
written statement from Cairo, "and even the lives of her family are also in
danger."

21/10/02
Subject: CNN: Egyptian Islamic Coup Trial Opens
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 01:43:30 -0400

Egyptian Islamic coup trial opens

CAIRO, Egypt --The trial has opened in Egypt of 26 people accused of aiming
to overthrow the government.

Among the defendants who appeared in Egypt's State Security Court, in
Cairo, on Sunday, are three Britons who say they have been tortured,
deprived of sleep and only allowed to see lawyers after they had spent
nearly two months in custody.

The trio -- Ian Nisbet, 28, Reza Pankhurst, 27, and Maajid Nawaz, 26, all
from London -- are accused with 23 Egyptian nationals of being members of
the banned Liberation Party and aiming to "rise against" the Egyptian state.

Nisbet and Pankhurst were working in Egypt with an Internet company while
Nawaz was studying law at Alexandria University on a foreign exchange
programme.

It is alleged they established a clandestine network to obstruct the rule
of law and constitution, possessed opposition leaflets and computers to
propagate their message, and attempted to promote the overthrow of the
government to establish Islamic rule.

If convicted, all could face a maximum of 15 years in prison.

The Liberation Party, also known as Hizb ut-Tahrir, is outlawed in most
Middle Eastern countries. Founded in 1952, it is blamed by the Egyptian
authorities for an attempted coup in 1974 and a number of terrorist operations.

Pankhurst, 27, said prison officers tortured him with electric shocks, beat
him, and threatened him with sexual abuse.

"I was stripped naked, they beat me, they threatened me with sexual abuse,"
he told reporters in the court room on Sunday.

"They tortured me with electricity multiple times and we were all deprived
of sleep."

The British ambassador to Egypt, John Sawers, told the UK's Press
Association: "We made known to the Egyptian authorities...our concerns
about the allegations of mistreatment and torture and there is an
investigation into that going on."

Asked if the case was likely to damage relations between Britain and Egypt,
the ambassador said: "It is an issue we have to manage."

He added: "We have done our best to ensure that the facilities are in place
for proper interpretation so the defendants can understand what is happening.

"They have full access to lawyers and we have had good consular access."

Human rights group Amnesty International has said in a statement: "Reports
that these men were tortured are deeply worrying and our concerns have
grown following the apparent intransigence of the Egyptian authorities who
are refusing to allow independent medical examinations of the men.

"The fact that the Egyptian authorities recently denied an Amnesty
International delegation access to the men only adds to our concern for
their welfare."

13/10/02
Subject: The State Department Report on Human Rights in Egypt
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2002 00:22:30 -0400

Dear All,
I am writing to comment on the State department Report on Human Rights in
Egypt, published in the digest .The Report mentioned that under Islamic
laws ( Sharia laws), the christians are granted freedom of religion.

However we have to take care as this could be very deceiving,the
perspectiveof freedom of religion in Islam is completely different from all
other parts of the world especially in the so -called western or christian
world.


For example under the banner of freedom of religion in Islam, christians
are not allowed to preach their religion to muslims and a muslim who is
converted to christianity, could face the death penalty under the Islamic
laws ( Redda laws).Churches are not allowed to be built freely and need
presidential approval in some cases, christians are not allowed senior
level posts in the government except in a very rare cases.Persecution and
discrimination are practiced at a wide scale against christian minorities
in most of the Islamic countries, sometimes unfortunately under the banner
of the Sharia laws.

As far as I understand and after long discussions with muslim friends and
members of the islamic movement, the rights of non-Muslims in Islam are
limited only to grant them the right to live and not to be killed , this
is not a civilized way of thinking but rather a butcher mentality.


We have to be very careful when some Muslims organization or figures
announce the Islam respect the rights of non -muslims, we have to ask
carefully what do they really mean by that.We have also to expose what they
really believe as human riights to the international communities and it's
organizations.

Best Regards

Ihab Attalla