By Ann Flower Seyse
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
EGYPT– In July 2009, the Assyrian International News Agency reported four Coptic Christian girls missing. There has been an increase in abductions of Coptic Christian girls the past year. Often Coptic girls that go missing, are reported but are not found until months later, after they have converted to Islam and married to Muslim men. This leads many Coptics to believe that their girls are being abducted and converted to Islam. Many families believe their girls are being raped as well.
The problem of abduction and forced conversion was first recognized by Coptic Pope Shenouda Ill in 1976. He stated at a conference in December of 1976 that “there is pressure being practiced to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam, and to marry them under terror to Muslim husbands.”
While Coptic human rights organizations often report on the abductions, the mainstream media avoids reporting on them. The mainstream media typically only reports on the abductions after a marriage has occurred, and at that time the couple is portrayed as happy elopers. The parents of the missing girls that have gone through this do not believe this story. Most parents believe that their daughters were kidnapped, raped, and then forced to convert to Islam against their will.
On July 15, 2009 fifteen year old Marian Bishay was abducted when she left home to pick up dinner for her mother and young brothers from a local restaurant. When her family reported Bishay’s abduction to the police, the police shrugged their shoulders and told them that there was nothing that the police could do, according to the Free Copts agency in Cairo.
The Family, along with help from the Free Copts agency began the search for Bishay on their own. After the police refused to file a report, Bishay’s father has filed a complaint himself with the Attorney General against the men he suspects of abducting his daughter, after the police would not file a report for him. In Egypt kidnapping a minor is punishable by 15 years imprisonment, or longer if the victim was raped.
Unfortunately Bishay’s story is just one of several this month. Irene Hanna Labib (AINA 7-18-2009), Amira Morgan and Ingy Basta (AINA 7-30-2009) were all abducted in July 2009, and are still missing. Pharmacy student Rania Tawfik Asaad was reported missing on June 27 2009, however her family learned of her whereabouts and was able to bargain for her return after just one week. Asaad’s father learned that she was forced to marry an officer in the Egyptian Military, and her release was arranged in exchange for keeping things quiet.
Dr. Waheed Ala, Coptic activist and researcher at the Observatory of Religions in Switzerland, commented, “It is strange that the State agencies abide by silence and protect the criminals who kidnap the girls, and that they put pressure on us so that we do not even call for the State to play its role in protecting its citizens. We have noticed that when the kidnapped girl is a Muslim, the security agencies get active and work hard and arrest the kidnappers who then face trials and get imprisoned, but this does not happen when the kidnapped girl is a Coptic Christian. This is especially true because in the majority of cases, the State Security is the one who masterminds the kidnapping plans.”
The tensions between Coptic Christians and Muslims are becoming increasingly visible in daily life in Egypt. In the famously liberal and artistic city of Alexandria, bathing suits are disappearing, and being replaced by long-sleeve shirts and ankle-length black caftans topped by head scarves. Many Muslims think that Coptic women wearing less than full coverage is an insult to Islam, and on Alexandria’s beaches today, western bathing suits have disappeared. It is not clear whether this kind of difference has motivated Muslims to convert Coptics to Islam more forcefully.
For more information, please see:
AINA – Abduction and Forced Islamization of Christian Coptic Girls Continues in Egypt – 11 August 2009
NY Times – On Beaches, Intolerance Wears a Veil – 11 August 2009
AINA – Muslims Abduct Two Christian Coptic Girls in Egypt – 30 July 2009
Free Copts – Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom – 23 July 2009
AINA – Egyptian Security Refuses to Return Abducted Christian Coptic Girl – 18 July 2009
