Free Republic

A 15-year-old Egyptian girl, Dina el-Gohary, has written an emotional appeal to President Obama asking him to use his influence to save her father, Maher el-Gohary, who is being persecuted for his beliefs. "Mr. President Obama, we are a minority in Egypt," Dina writes, according to a report from the Assyrian International News Agency. "We are treated very badly. ... We are imprisoned in our own home because Muslim clerics called for the murder of my father, and now the Government has set for us a new prison, we are imprisoned in our own country." Dina and her father are...

Egypt (AINA) -- Egyptian security forces have intensified their presence in the Upper Egyptian town of Dairout, in anticipation of a recurrence of Muslim violence against Christians. Copts expressed their fear over leaflets entitled "These have to Die!" which are being distributed to all Muslims in Dairout and neighborhoods, enticing them to "burn, vandalize and clean the country of these evil immoral infidels." Reports from Dairout, 313 km south of Cairo, confirm that Christian Copts are afraid to leave their homes and have stayed indoors since violence against them erupted on October 24, 2009. This collective punishment of Copts was...

Just minutes ago I posted an article about the persecution of Christians in Egypt. We now see just how "tolerant" Islam is in Somalia. This is a worldwide problem that has come to our shores as well. Will we sit silently and let them takeover or we will defend our freedoms and fight Islam? It is time for non-Muslims to rise up and take a stand against Islam.

Egypt (AINA) -- Nayer Mansour Sahrab, a Muslim minibus driver, stabbed four Christian Copts on Sunday, September 27, in the village of Delga, Deir Mawas, Al Minya Governorate, killing one and seriously injuring the other three. The incident led thousands of angry Copts to rally and demand an end to the government's policy of indifference in dealing with Coptic issues. State Security forces have cordoned the village and are still heavily present near the church. When a Coptic family desired to board a minibus other than the one owned by Mr. Sahrab (28) an argument ensued. Mr. Sahrab was apparently...

OUT OF EGYPT: A Christian Analysis of ObamaÂ’s Cairo Speech Part 1 - Undermining the Legitimacy of Israel? President Obama recently did something historic and unprecedented. He gave an address to the entire Muslim world, and that from a Muslim capitol, Cairo. This was an ambitious undertaking, for the Muslim world comprises no less than one billion people, and it is far from monolithic in its perspective. It is not my intent to give a complete political or historical analysis of the speech, for there are many who have done so, representing points of view from the entire cultural spectrum....

In a continuation of the ongoing wave of arson attacks on Coptic places of worship, the Church of St. Abaskharion Kellini, in the village of Ezbet Bassilious, Beni Mazar, was burnt down at noon on July 11 by Muslim village inhabitants. No one was injured. A source in Bani Mazar Diocese told Free Copts advocacy the fire was instigated and directed as usual by State Security, aiming "to prevent prayers in new churches throughout both the Upper Egyptian provinces of Minya and of Beni Suef." Reverend Abraham Phillobos, pastor of the torched Church told Coptic News Bulletin that the Security...

The Middle East has a long history of Muslims persecuting Christians. Nowadays, most of these incidents go unnoticed and uncovered by mainstream press. In many cases, they are not even covered in the Christian press. This past weekend in the port city of Alexandria, Egypt there was a massive riot against the Christians. News spread quickly through the city that Christians had stabbed a Muslim. In response, the Muslim community gathered near a mosque and from there went on a riotous rampage throughout the city breaking the windows of Christian shops and destroying Christian property. The Egyptian police arrested only...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, April 5 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Muslims pelted Christian-owned shops and a police station with stones in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria on Sunday after a Muslim man was killed, an eyewitness said. A security source said the violence started after word of mouth reports a Muslim man, identified as Ahmed Abdel Razeq Gomaa, had been stabbed to death in the street by his Christian landlords. Crowds of Muslims assembled near a mosque for funeral prayers for Gomaa chanting "They'll die, they'll die," in reference to the three Christian landlords, brothers Ayman, Atef and Farag Tagy, the...

A crowd of angry Muslims quickly gathered, threw stones at the building and burned banners that said, ‘‘No to the church.’’ They tried to storm the gates, clashed with police and chanted, ‘‘The church has fallen, the priest is dead,’’ according to witnesses. Tempers are flaring as Islamic conservatism gains ground and Christians grow increasingly resentful about discrimination by the Muslim majority. The Ain Shams incident highlights that even in Cairo — seen as more cosmopolitan in its sectarian relations than the rural south — suspicions run between the communities. Muslim and Christian neighbors also are competing over who can...

Pope Shenuda III, Head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church, seen here in January 2008. Shenuda III One thousand Christians were today trapped inside the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in West Ain Shams,Cairo, after more than twenty thousand Muslims attacked them with stones and butane gas cylinders. The Church's priest Father Antonious said that the situation is extremely dangerous.The Muslim mob that attacked the church blocked both sides of the street and encircled the church building, broke its doors and demolished its entire first floor. The mob were chanting Jihad verses as well as slogans saying...

Last week I was supposed to interview Father Zakaria Boutros on my television show. It would have been the second time I had spoken to this gentle, thoughtful man, a leading figure of the Egyptian Coptic Christian community and now obliged to live in exile in the US after twice being arrested in his homeland. But on this occasion the interview was suddenly cancelled. A $60-million bounty was just put on his head by Muslim extremists in Iran and Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda were thought to be intent on fulfilling the fatwa and it was considered too dangerous to allow him...

Several hundred Coptic Christians have held a demonstration against the government's alleged failure to crack down on Muslim violence. The Christians in the town of Mallawi, around 300 kilometres south of Cairo, say police and local authorities did nothing when their church was attacked by dozens of armed men on Saturday. Five people were killed and one injured in the ensuing gun battle. Three monks, who were kidnapped but released on Sunday, were seriously abused and have been admitted to hospital. The Mallawi Christians say they were repeatedly attacked in the past few years, but the authorities never took any...

Q:I saw a magazine article that mentioned discrimination against Coptic Christians in Egypt. Are Coptic Christians a separate church or is that just a name for Christians in Egypt. Do they belong to different Christian churches? — Lakesha, Oklahoma City A:The Christian Coptic Orthodox Church is a separate church that is part of the little-known group of Christians called the Oriental Orthodox. Oriental Orthodox churches are not the same as the more familiar Eastern Orthodox group, which includes the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches. Most Americans are aware of the split in Christianity caused by the Reformation led by Martin...

An Egyptian court has ruled that 12 Christians who converted to Islam and then reverted to Christianity can have their faith officially recognised. The decision overturns a lower court ruling by a lower court, which said the state need not recognise conversions from Islam because of a religious ban. This is a case that has tested Egypt's tolerance of conversions from Islam. A lawyer for the 12 Coptic Christians described the case as a victory for human rights and freedom of religion. He says it could open the door for hundreds of other Copts who want to revert to their...

I have heard tales of an amazing work taking place among the garbage workers of Cairo since I was an undergrad. So it was very encouraging to read this article from the February Lausanne World Pulse: Transforming Lives in Cairo's Garbage Villages. Villagers collect garbage from city apartments and recycle it. They are the most despised group of people in Egyptian society. They are not paid by the government; however, they receive small tips from the people whose garbage they collect. The rest of their income comes from recycling garbage. It is one of the most ecologically efficient operations in...

Former Muslim sues Egypt for right to become Christian. by Peter Lamprecht Conservative Islamic lawyers came out in support of the Egyptian government last week at the opening court hearing of a Muslim convert to Christianity. In a move that has caused national uproar, former Muslim Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy is suing Egypt to change the religion listed on his identification papers to Christianity. Islamist lawyers associated with radical cleric Youssef al-Badry attended the October 2 hearing in Cairo and legally joined the case on the government’s side, Hegazy told Compass. Hegazy’s lawyers confirmed that Magdy al-Anany and at least three...

The legal situation in Egypt is contradictory and makes life difficult for the Church, according to His Beatitude Antonios Naguib, the Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church. On the one hand the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and conscience, yet on the other hand it enshrines the principle that Islam is a state religion in Egypt and that Islamic Law is the fundamental source of the legal system, Patriarch Naguib said. Speaking recently to the German-based international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the Patriarch explained that in concrete legal situations intellectual Muslims appeal to the...

The Holy Virgin’s church at the mid-Delta town of Mehalla was the scene of Coptic demonstrations this week in the aftermath of the disappearance of 18-year-old Amal Zaki Nessim. Amal went to work as usual last Sunday but never came back. Her colleagues at the Mehalla Spinning and Weaving Company said she left work early that day with a friend who is a fully-veiled Muslim woman named Samah. Amal’s family reported her missing and Samah was questioned by the police but claimed she knew nothing about Amal’s disappearance. The Copts demonstrated in wrath, demanding that the police find Amal and...

CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity and then took the unprecedented step of seeking official recognition for the change said he has gone into hiding following death threats. Mohammed Hegazy, who sparked controversy when pictures of him posing with a poster of the Virgin Mary were published in newspapers, was shunned by his family and threatened by an Islamist cleric vowing to seek his execution as an apostate. "I know there are fatwas (religious edicts) to shed my blood, but I will not give up and I will not leave the country," the 25-year-old Hegazy told...

An Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity has gone into hiding, facing death threats after he launched an attempt to get official recognition of his change of religion, an unprecedented step in this conservative Islamic nation. An Islamist cleric has vowed to seek Mohammed Hegazy's execution as an apostate, his family has shunned him, and Hegazy raised a storm of controversy when pictures of him posing for journalists with a poster of the Virgin Mary were published in the newspapers. Hegazy said he received death threats ... he lives with his wife, who is also a convert from Islam and...

A human rights organization given special consultative status by the United Nations wants a U.S. judge to make an order halting a Christian man's deportation to Egypt permanent – because of the likelihood he would be tortured. The request comes in the form of a court pleading from the Washington-based American Center for Law and Justice, whose European affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice in Strasbourg, France, has been given "special consultative status" from the United Nations. The groups are asking a federal court in Pennsylvania to protect the human rights of Coptic Christian Sameh Khouzam, 38,...

Two young boys ordered to take a school test that would result in their conversion to Islam wrote, "I am Christian," on the exam papers, knowing in advance that could very well spell the end of their educations. Now a U.S.-based organization is lobbying for international pressure on Egypt to quit forcing Christians into such no-win situations.

Egypt Police Hands Over Christian Convert To "Fanatical Muslim" Family Monday, 23 July 2007 By BosNewsLife News Center CAIRO, EGYPT (BosNewsLife)-- Egyptian police in the city of Alexandria who last week arrested a Christian convert, handed the woman over Monday, July 23, to her fanatical Islamist family, who beat her before driving her away, a well-informed Christian news agency reported. Compass Direct News quoted eyewitnesses as saying that family members of Shaymaa (Eman) Muhammad al-Sayed, 26, "dragged her screaming from the Bab-Sharky police station where she had been" held in custody. After "severely beating her" in the Shatby Cemetery behind...

CAIRO (Reuters) -Egyptian security forces arrested 59 Muslims on Saturday accused of setting fire to Christian homes and shops in clashes over church construction that underlined lingering sectarian tensions, security sources said. They said prosecutors ordered the arrests after taking the testimony of 10 Coptic Christians who were hurt in the clashes on Friday in the village of Behma, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Cairo, in which hundreds of people from both faiths fought with sticks and hurled bricks and firebombs at one another. The 59 Muslims were charged with arson and with spreading sectarian strife. Security sources...

This past Good Friday, a man entered Mar Girgis Church in Alexandria, Egypt, and stabbed one worshipper to death and wounded two others. He then went to another church and stabbed three other Christians. The events in Alexandria were a reminder of the, at best, tenuous status of Christians in the Islamic world. The Egyptian government immediately dismissed the possibility that animus toward Christians played a role in the attacks. Egypt’s Interior Ministry said that the attacker suffered from “psychological disturbances.” How convenient. Egyptian Christians, known as Copts, did not buy it, and for good reason: Police officials had a...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) - Police fired live ammunition into the air and lobbed tear gas into rioting crowds of Christians and Muslims Sunday in a third day of sectarian violence in Egypt's second-largest city. One Muslim reportedly died of wounds suffered a day earlier and dozens more were wounded and arrested. Police fought back against Coptic Christians who were encircled by a security cordon around the Saints Church in downtown Alexandria after the mob began hurling stones and bottles from inside the police line and fellow demonstrators tossed Molotov cocktails from the balconies of nearby buildings. Police could be seen...

That the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) won 88 seats -- nearly a quarter of the total in parliament -- in the recent elections came as a shock to many, and a surprise to some, even those closely following Islamist movements. The most palpable reaction came from Coptic commentators; some even predicting that if the MB came to power, Copts would emigrate and the stock exchange suffer as a consequence.

In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, a crowd of Muslim demonstrators tries to storm a Coptic church to protest at a play about a Muslim campaign to convert Christians. In Iraq, the Christian middle class is emigrating in droves, fearful of the daily violence and the hostility it now encounters from Islamists.  In Saudi Arabia, churches and other places of non-Muslim worship are banned, and foreign workers who try to hold secret Christian services are jailed, flogged and often deported. In the land of its birth, Christianity is in sad decline as the pressures of life under Israeli occupation and...

Cairo (dpa) - Two Christian women reportedly kidnapped two years ago have resurfaced in Beheira, a province north of Cairo, after converting to Islam and marrying Moslem men, a police source said on Tuesday. The parents of the two women, sisters known only as Marianne and Christine, accused their Moslem drivers of kidnapping the girls. Reports spread that the girls had been forced to convert to Islam and marry the men. But police sources said that the fathers of the girls' drivers had defended their sons' actions, denying claims the marriages were forced. They confirmed that their sons were living...

Are the concerns of Copts following the gains the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood made in the parliamentary elections justified? Gihan Shahine finds some answers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has doubled the number of its seats in parliament, forming the largest opposition bloc, concerns apparently not just members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Many Copts, not to mention secularists and liberals, have also expressed fear that the group's rise to power will ultimately turn Egypt into a conservative Islamic state where Copts will be treated as second-class citizens and women would be discriminated against. Only one out of...

The tension between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria is far from over -- or so it seems. Salonaz Sami reports The causes of the sectarian tension that erupted last week between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria's Muharram Bek neighbourhood have not been resolved. A stifling atmosphere is still very much in the air, symbolised by the armoured vehicles and anti-riot security personnel guarding the neighbourhood's narrow alleyways. It was the worst Muslim-Christian violence Egypt has seen in years. Last Friday, thousands of Muslims gathered in front of the Saint George Coptic Church to protest what they said was a play...

CAIRO -- A deadly Muslim protest in front of a church in Alexandria has deepened the resentment of Egypt's Christian Coptic minority, which has long complained of systematic marginalization. Some 5,000 angry Muslims protestors rioted and clashed with police in the Mediterranean city on October 21 demanding an apology from Coptic Pope Shenuda III over the release of a DVD deemed offensive to Islam. The clashes left three people dead and at least 60 wounded. More than 100 people have been placed in 15-day preventive detention for suspected involvement in the riots in Egypt's second city, a judiciary official said...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians traded barbs over deadly riots sparked by a play deemed offensive to Islam, despite a public display of unity ahead of November elections. Friday's clashes -- which left three dead and around 60 wounded -- were some of the worst intercommunal violence Egypt has seen in years, underscoring the fragile religious balance of the Arab world's most populous country. Calm had returned to the streets of the second city of Alexandria ADVERTISEMENT Saturday, but Muslims and Copts blamed each other for the rioting. The Coptic candidate of the ruling National Democratic...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- One person died and more than 90 were injured as thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam. Police responded by beating protesters and firing tear gas into the crowd, officials said. Police said 53 protesters were arrested as people hurled stones, smashed windows and tried to storm St. George Church. Protesters also set a police car on fire and wrecked eight other cars, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A photographer for The Associated Press saw police fire rubber bullets into the crowd, causing...

Muslims clash with police outside Egyptian church; 1 dead, 90 wounded ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- One person died and more than 90 were injured as thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam. Police responded by beating protesters and firing tear gas into the crowd, officials said. Police said 53 protesters were arrested as people hurled stones, smashed windows and tried to storm St. George Church. Protesters also set a police car on fire and wrecked eight other cars, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A photographer for The...

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt -- Thousands of Muslims rioted outside a Coptic Christian church Friday to denounce a play deemed offensive to Islam, prompting police to beat protesters and fire tear gas into the crowd, officials said. One person died and more than 90 were injured. Police said 53 protesters were arrested as people hurled stones, smashed windows and tried to storm St. George Church. Protesters also set a police car on fire and wrecked eight other cars, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A photographer for The Associated Press saw police fire rubber bullets into the crowd, causing injuries. Police...

Coptic TV Show Causes Controversy in Egypt The weekly show "Questions About Faith" on the Egyptian based Christian Al-Hayat satellite channel features an Egyptian Coptic priest residing in the United States. Father Zakaria Boutrus, the show, and Al-Hayat TV itself, have come under harsh criticism in the Egyptian press. Boutrus and his show have been accused of attacking Islam; of being supported by the U.S. to sow division and strife; and of "mocking the verses of Allah." Al-Hayat TV has been accused of being the work of foreign agents collaborating with the U.S., and Pope Shenouda III reportedly announced his...

An Egyptian Christian was released from mental hospital following international pressure over his five-month forcible commitment to the mental hospital, and being charged from apostasy from Islam, Compass Direct has informed. Gasir Mohammed Mahmoud was released on 9th June 2005 from the El-Khanka Hospital for Mental and Neurological Health in Cairo, Egypt. Mahmoud was adopted and raised by a Muslim couple who were shocked last December after finding out that he had converted to Christianity two year before. Afterwards, his father appealed to local Muslim sheikhs prompting them to issue a death sentence against his son for apostasy. However, his...

ICC:80 people were arrested on Jan. 1 and a curfew was imposed on the town of Damshau Hashem in Minya province after a conflict between Muslims and Coptic Christians that resulted in the death of a Muslim youth and the burning down of a Christian's home. The conflict was over the building of a Church. The Muslims claimed that the town did not need a church since the town only had 500 Christians (and 20,000 Muslims). In an ongoing pattern of persecution, Christians in Egypt find it practically impossible to build new churches in this Muslim ruled country.

Egyptian government official destroys a newly built Coptic Church hours after it held its first prayer. Press Release… For more information contact Michael Meunier at 703-930-0120 or visit http://www.copts.com Washington DC (12/19/2001)--U.S. Copts Association received credible information that on Sunday 12/16/2001, the head of AL-UBOR city, Egypt- a newly constructed city on the out streaks of Cairo- ordered his police forces and personally participated in destroying the only Church in the city just hours after the church opened its doors and held its first prayer meeting. The Coptic Church had obtained all proper permissions from President Mubarak and the Egyptian...

EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT BLOCKS CHURCH CONSTRUCTION AND COPTIC SOCIAL SERVICE CENTER    PRESS RELEASE                                                          Contact: Susan Joy Bishai       FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                       Phone: 202.737.3660  Washington, D.C. (10/26/04)—Egypt’s Minister of the Interior has refused a permit request that would resume church construction delayed for almost thirty years.  Over 5,000 parishioners of St. Antony’s Coptic Church in the Village of Mankateen, Smalout province, El-Minia Governance have struggled since 1978 to secure a place of worship and social services for their community. Parishioners are forced to conduct their religious ceremonies—including baptisms, weddings, and funerals—on the street. Attacks by Islamist terrorist group al Gamaa al-Islamiyya halted the...

Bigotry and violent Muslim fanatics have forced many Christians to flee the region of Jesus' birth -- but the world has barely noticed, writes Salim MansurBy SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto SunAgain this year, in the land between two rivers, the Nile and the Indus, Christians will gather to celebrate the birth of Christ and pray for deliverance from their ancestral homes. The cradle of Christianity is the Middle East, but in recent times Christians have been departing in record numbers from the Arab-Muslim world to escape organized bigotry and violence of Muslim fanatics and terrorists. The August bombings...

Tensions between Christians and Muslims in Egypt have flared in recent weeks. The protests began after rumours spread that a priest's wife, Wafa Constantine, had been abducted and forced to convert to Islam. Government officials had said Mrs Constantine, 48, wanted to convert to Islam but was being prevented from doing so by her family. The clashes at the cathedral ended when protesters were told that Mrs Constantine was back under the Church's protection. Last week, Egypt's prosecutor-general said that Mrs Constantine had gone to police saying she wanted to change her religion, but had decided to remain a Christian...

In recent weeks anti-Christian bigotry has pushed members of Egypt’s Coptic community to rally in protest. In his self-imposed retreat Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III also wants to voice his disapproval of the violence, persecution and violations of religious freedom Christians experience on a daily basis in the ancient land of the Pharaohs. Here are some of the latest anti-Christian incidents: On December 3, some 5,000 Muslim villagers in Mankateen (Samalout province, 220 km south of Cairo) stormed and set fire to a building housing a Coptic prayer room. They then swept through the village, looting and burning Coptic homes and...

Coptic Patriarch Shenouda III went into retreat to protest Muslim discrimination against Egyptian Christians. “The Patriarch will remain in retreat,” his secretary said, “till the time the government has found a solution his conscience can accept”. Egyptian authorities today released 13 of the 34 detainees, but the other 21 will remain in prison for another two weeks. Speaking off the record, Coptic sources said that Shenouda will leave his voluntary retreat at Anba Bishoy monastery (north-east of Cairo) only when the 34 Copts detained after clashes with police on December 8 are released. Three thousand Christians had gathered outside Cairo's...

Christians in Egyptian cathedral stone police to protest woman's alleged forced conversion to Islam 30 hurt By Maggie Michael ASSOCIATED PRESS 6:11 p.m. December 8, 2004 CAIRO, Egypt – Several thousand Christians who packed a cathedral compound in the Egyptian capital hurled stones at riot police Wednesday to protest a woman's alleged forced conversion to Islam. At least 30 people were injured. The injured included 21 police officers. Some policemen were seen wiping blood from their heads in the streets outside the compound of the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo's Abbasiya district. Police threw the rocks back over the compound...

SEVERAL thousand Christians took over the compound of the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Egypt's capital today, hurling stones at riot police in a protest over a woman who was allegedly forced to convert to Islam. The stones injured at least 30 people, including 21 police. Some policemen were seen wiping blood from their heads in the streets outside the compound in the city's Abbasiya district. Police sealed off the compound, parking 40 trucks around its walls, and closed adjacent roads. Protests began at the cathedral on Sunday as word spread that the wife of a Coptic priest in Abou al-Matameer,...

EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES REFUSE TO CHARGE CHRISTIAN PRISONER Hany Samir Tawfik November 19 (Compass) -- An Egyptian Christian jailed without charges for 19 months has become emotionally disturbed and lost vision in one eye from torture and lack of medical treatment, his widowed mother declared last week. Hany Samir Tawfik, 28, has been continuously jailed since March 2003. After being deported back to Egypt from Saudi Arabia on June 15, 2002, he was arrested at the Cairo international airport upon his return and detained for 52 days. Tawfik was then re-arrested by police seven months later because he refused their demands...

Four Christians arrested in Egypt -31/3/04 Four Christians have been arrested in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt after police found that they had Bibles and Christian music tapes in their possession, according to reports received by the Jubilee Campaign. The four Christians - Peter Nady Kamel, Ishaq Dawoud Yassa, John Adel and Andrew Sa'id - all University students at Cairo or Minya Universities. They had gone together to the beach resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, by the Red Sea, for a Christian retreat and stayed at a hotel. They were arrested in their hotel rooms by local police at 9 a.m...

Coptic Girl Forced To Convert To Islam ( ANS) -- Eighteen year-old Ingy Helmy Georgy Labibe was abducted January 4 while shopping in her hometown, Mahala el Kobra, Egypt, according to reports received from the U.S. Copts Association. When they failed to locate her themselves, Ingy's family turned to local police officers who refused to file a missing person report. Shortly thereafter, the family was notified that Ingy was in the custody of Fahmy Taha Mahmoud and would officially convert to Islam. The Copts Association reports that at 18 years of age, Ingy is considered a juvenile under Egyptian law,...