The Kidnapping of Young Coptic Christians for Forcible Conversion to Islam in Egypt

Young Christian males and females are being kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam.  It is suspected that videotaped sexual abuse is taking place to shame the victims.  Egyptian society is an honor vs. shame-based culture and victims worry about the effects of shaming their families.  It is also believed that those who are abducted are silenced by threats to family members.  Victims are brought to "religious guidance committee" meetings for the purposes of "reviewing" their cases.  These meetings are often held in a National Security Police headquarters, which is against the law.  

The  following is a confirmed report of one such case that occurred last month in Alexandria:

  
 
Victim: Neveen Maher Albert Morcos 19 years of age -  ALEXANDRIA
 
Address: 9, Hamed Nasr St., Camp Shizar, Alexandria, Egypt
 
Information Sources by way of interview:  Ms Suzanne Maher Albert Morcos (Elder Sister), Mr Sabry Maher Albert Morcos (Elder Brother), Mr Maher Albert Morcos (Father), Fr. Mikhail Ibrahim - The Priest of St Mary & St Moses, El Manshiah, Alexandria.
 
Evidence: Medical Certificates, letters to officials & Video interviews in CD format.
 
Neveen is a student at the tourism and hotels college at Alexandria. She works with her sister as a salesperson at Carrefour department store near Alexandria. Neveen did not interact much with others at work.  Neveen practised her Christianity actively and regularly attended church services at St Demiana Church, El Wardian, Alexandria.
 
Neveen would regularly visit her confession father, Fr Thomas. The victim suffers from low blood pressure and hormonal deficiencies, which resulted in loss of consciousness. Her family describes Neveen as a sensitive person. Neveen was planning to be a nun prior to her kidnapping.
  
The victims elder sister Susan, said that Neveen returned on the 13/2/2005 from a retreat to St Demiana's monastery in Damyat. Neveen surprised her family when she told them of her intention to become a nun and that she has chosen "Christ" as her groom, meaning that she wants to dedicate the rest of her life in solitude and prayer at the convent. The family asked Neveen not to rush into making such a decision as her family needs her to be around.
 
On the 14/2/2005 at approximately 12:00, she wanted to go to Damanhour to see her confession father, as he was not in Alexandria.  Neveen came back home to take her mothers permission before departing to Damanhour. Neveen did not return that evening.
  
The family phoned her confession Father, Fr. Thomas who confirmed that she did not go to see him. Many retreat houses where checked in Damanhour and St Demiana's convent at Damyat, the result in vain.
  
The family then filed a report of disappearance at the local police station and the State Security office through her brother 'Sabry'. The officer named Essam Shawky, told Sabry "We don't have any clue about her whereabouts, but I will do my best to find her dead or alive so that we can alleviate your suffering". The family called the officer several times, though each time he would respond ' we are still searching for her'.
  
After 8 days, the State Security Service informed a Priest named Fr. Armia in Alexandria that Neveen has decided to convert to Islam. Fr. Armia notified the family and Neveen's confession father (Fr Thomas) and  Fr. Mikhail who is a priest at St Mary's and St Moses in El-Manshiah' to participate in a 'religious guidance' session on28/02/2005.
 
Father Thomas and Father Michael attended the session and the reverend fathers were convinced that Neveen was under intense
pressure and/or drugged. The reverend fathers came to this conclusion because it was obvious from the way Neveen was responding to their 
questions.  
 
When the Priests questioned Neveen the following observations were made:
 
The family were not given permission to attend the 'religious guidance' session.  Fr. Mikhail was the first to arrive at the session. As soon as 
Neveen went into the room to meet Fr.Thomas, she found Fr. Mikhail and  took her chair and sat at a distance saying; ' I have been warned about you in particular' (Fr. Mikhail was an ex-high-ranked general in the  police force) and she continued to say that she met with many high 
officials that she never dreamed to sit with (This raises suspicion that  they are going out of their way to ensure that she converts).
 
When Fr. Thomas joined the session with Fr. Mikhail, he asked  Neveen if she has an I.D. card. When Neveen said she didn't have one, Fr.  
Mikhail requested that the session be postponed until the I.D. is produced, though the policeman named 'Abdel Raheem' left the room and 
later produced a 'paper I.D.' which is no longer valid in Egypt as all I.D. cards are now computerised. The I.D. was in her Christian name and 
issued 15/2/2005 one day after her disappearance. 

I.D. cards in Egypt  normally take 3 weeks to be issued and the signature of the father is required.
 
At times, Neveen would respond to a certain question 10 minutes later e.g., when Neveen would pause for a long time after being asked a 
question, the Priests would continue and ask her another question, to which she would reply to the answer to the first question.  Neveen would repeat certain sentences in her answers, e.g. she would say 'I am convinced of my decision, and it's none of your business'. The Priests believe that she was pressured into repeating this answer. 
 
When Neveen was asked 'why do you want to convert to Islam'?  Her response was 'lets not talk about religion' although she accepted 
that the Priests anoint her with holy oil.  When Neveen's family was mentioned by the priests, Neveen was frightened and anxious and her voice would become louder and she would plead with the priests 'please do not mention my family here, and in particular do not mention my sister Susan's name here'.
 
The 'religious guidance session' was held at the National Security headquarters in Alexandria and not in a neutral place as required by law.
When the Priest's asked about her decision to abandon her faith in Jesus Christ, she would become silent, embarrassed and bow her head.
During the abovementioned session, Neveen assured the priests that she is not involved in any relationship with any Muslim man. The 'religious guidance' session ended, though the Priests requested another session.
 
A second session was scheduled on 10/3/2005. This time, the family was permitted to enter the building but they were forced into a room on 
their own, far from the 'religious guidance' session room. When Susan (Neveen's sister) and her mother arrived at the state security 
headquarters, the guard questioned her 'why are you here'? Whilst he was  walking with her, she responded ' I am attending the
religious guidance session '. He replied 'are you here for Neveen? She is not coming today'. Therefore, the guard knew beforehand that
Neveen was not attending. However, the guard took Susan to an officer named Khaled Ajamy who treated her badly and abused her by saying
'if you brought your family, your streets and everyone you know you will not be able totouch her even though there may be a few inches
between you. Susan responded, 'I am not here to harm my sister, though I am here to see her'. The officer then made some offensive remarks
to another officer indirectly targeting Susan, e.g.'if only there was a belly dancer here between 12pm and 1pm we would have a very good
time'. These comments were made in the presence of Susan. Such comments are considered offensive and not acceptable in Egyptian society in the presence of a female and her mother.
 
Susan waited for an hour, and then the officer told Susan; 'Neveen is late, therefore she's not coming'. The officer told Susan this 
information without making or receiving any phone calls or instructionsfrom outside, hence he knew that she was not going to be in attendance 
from the outset. The day ended without seeing Neveen and since then they didn't hear anything about Neveen. Susan and her mother returned home.  
 
Neveen's mother later suffered a stroke as a result of her daughter's absence. Susan continued to pursue other ways to get access to her 
sister and spoke to the pope's secretary, Fr. Sharobim in Alexandria. Fr. Sharobim spoke to the head of security who said that he will try to 
arrange another session, but nothing eventuated.
 
Susan then went to the police headquarters and met with an officer named 'Ashraf Abdel Kadir' who promised to arrange an unofficial meeting 
between Susan and Neveen two days before the next session (if arranged).  Fr. Thomas then warned Susan, that in the event that she meets Neveen to check her body and clothes (whilst hugging) to ensure that she is not 'wired' by the State Security Police, as in many cases the police spied on meetings between victims and priests or relatives. The meeting was not arranged.
 
Neveen's family then contacted 'Fadi Nabil's' family from Alexandria. Fadi Nabil is a young man 18 years of age, who was kidnapped and forced to convert under threat. The Two families agreed to hold a small demonstration outside St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria. Approximately 30 people attended this demonstration on the 21st March, 2005. Bishop Yoannis (The Pope's secretary, Cairo) and Fr.  Sharobim took the two families inside their office and calmed them down and promised that they will solve the problem through the official channels.  Again, nothing has eventuated till the date of this report.
 
COMMENTS: It is obvious from the above case that the police are cooperating with those who have taken Neveen. If the police and the 
state security were able to arrange the first 'religious guidance' session, then they know where she is and who is holding her in custody. 
Despite many requests from the families, the police and state security always respond with 'we do not know anything about her'. Instead of 
helping the family locate their relative, they resort to abuse and threats.
  
The family has written several letters to the President, Interior minister, Pope Shenouda, the governor of Alexandria and the General 
Prosecutor. To date, no one has responded to their cries for help.
 
PAUL  AMEEN            

We often hear about the kidnapping of young Christian women by Muslim men in Egypt. Women who are drugged, raped and forced to convert to Islam. 

We also hear that the police and government officials often aid the miscreants.  Yet Pope Shenouda and most of his clergy continue to cheerlead Egypt's recently re-elected president, Hosni Mubarak, who is at least partially responsible for these acts. The Pope and most of his clergy have never once issued a public statement pressuring Mubarak to do something to stop this. The Pope and most of his clergy continue to silence their congregations and remain frightened men instead, as more and more women are taken away.  Coptic congregants help this inaction by silencing opposing voices within their congregations saying the Pope always knows what is best.  But in the face of continued abductions the records prove that he doesn't always know what is best and therefore we must ask the Pope and his followers: Is it truly a "spiritual" act to remain silent in the face of such tragedy?  

The stark truth is that the dhimmified position of most of the Coptic clergy does nothing to prevent these atrocities from happening.   Most Copts are so brainwashed into compliance by their clergy that they have lost their ability to do anything significant at all. 

Last February, I interviewed a Coptic Bishop in New Jersey on the persecution of Christians in Egypt.  He told me there wasn't any.

A few months ago, I sent out a confession by a former Muslim who belonged to an Islamic proselytizing organization in Egypt.  He went into detail on how he and others seduced, drugged and raped young Coptic women.  Yet despite this, and continued reports of female abduction, the Copts and most of their clergy still remain silent. 

Their silence is deafening. 

Maria Sliwa

Egyptian Police Obstruct Search for Missing Christian Woman
Compass Direct

September 13, 2005
Three months after his 20-year-old daughter disappeared while on an errand from work, Coptic Christian Rezk Shafik Attallah remains convinced that she has been kidnapped by a former police constable.

Attallah said his daughter, Marianna Rezk Shafik Attallah, left work May 30 at the Al-Ra’ay medical laboratory in El-Fayoum, 60 miles south of Cairo, to pick up a patient’s blood sample from a residential address. Neither her family nor her fiancé have heard from her since.

When she failed to return home, her fiancé, Bishoy Hosni, went searching for her at her workplace. Mohammed Salah No’man, owner of the No’man Computer Center neighboring the Al-Ra’ay lab, told him that a Muslim employee of his, Ali Mahmoud Abdel Rasoul, had kidnapped the young woman.

Reportedly Rasoul, who had been maintaining the Al-Ra’ay laboratory computers, had previously been fired from the police force for “bad behavior.�

Police Obstuction

After hearing this, Attallah filed a report with the police on the day of his daughter’s disappearance, naming Rasoul as her suspected kidnapper. But the officials on duty refused to give him the case number.

At the same time, a State Security Investigation (SSI) officer declared that Rasoul had packed up his household goods and moved 250 miles further south to Sohag, taking Attallah’s daughter with him. But he warned the young woman’s father and fiancé to stop looking for her, declaring she had left of her own free will.

The woman’s fiancé remained skeptical. “If she went of her own free will,� Hosni told Compass, “then why didn’t she come to say that [to us]?�

Soon afterwards, rumors spread in their district of El-Fayoum that Marianna Attallah had left her Christian faith and converted to Islam. But Hosni dismissed the claims, saying that during their courtship, it had been her close relationship with God and active involvement in the church that had helped bring him to a deeper understanding of his Christian faith.

Employer Involvement in Abduction

It also became evident to him that Marianna Attallah’s employer, a Coptic woman named Ivon Asa’ad was involved somehow in the young woman’s disappearance.
A graduate of a local school of commerce, Marianna Attallah had taken a job at the lab on March 15, her meager salary of 90 Egyptian pounds ($15) per month supplementing her father’s limited income as a tailor.

But the young woman’s parents realized that something at work was disturbing her, causing her to spend long hours alone crying. So despite their financial straits to provide for her and her four siblings, they encouraged Marianna Attallah to quit her job. Relieved, she resigned on May 28. The next day Asa’ad visited her at the family’s house, offering to more than double her salary if she would return.

The offer was too good to turn down, and she returned to the lab on May 30. But when Hosni later telephoned Asa’ad, questioning the circumstances of his fiancée’s errand and disappearance, within an hour police summoned him and the young woman’s father.
“Why did you call Miss Ivon?� the SSI officer asked them. “Don’t call her again. Marianna was not kidnapped. She went of her free will.�

Cruel Joke on Desperate Father

The SSI has continued to stonewall the Attallah family’s attempts to recover their daughter. On August 11, a security officer called the father, suggesting that he buy a cell phone so that the police could contact him whenever they learned his daughter’s whereabouts.
Attallah scraped together enough money to buy the phone and gave the police his number. Soon afterwards the officer called, telling him that his daughter was in Alexandria and promising that if he went to meet her, he could bring her back home.

Burning with hope, the father traveled the 200 miles north to Alexandria, where the officer called him again. “Your daughter is across the street from you,� he was told.
Spotting a veiled woman, the father approached and tried to speak with her, but she ran away from him and got on a bus. When he followed and tried again to speak with her, other passengers thought he was harassing the woman and started beating him, finally forcing him to get off the bus.

“They are enjoying torturing that poor father,� commented a human rights activist who interviewed Attallah in late August.

Although Attallah sent faxed petitions about his daughter’s case to the interior minister, SSI headquarters in El-Fayoum and Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenoudah III, he has received no reply.

Hundreds of young Coptic women disappear and are reported kidnapped each year in Egypt, but their families’ claims are difficult to prove.

At the same time, security officials frequently prevent Christian parents from having contact or private access to their daughters once they have been located, instead leaving them in the custody of the Muslim “protector� who abducted them.

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/religiontoday/1350834.html?view=print

I believe Browne is spot on in his assessment.

Church of martyrs
Anthony Browne (The Spectator UK)

For most citizens of Iraq, the invasion meant the end of tyranny. For one group, however, it meant a new start: the country's historic Christian community. When the war stopped, persecution by Islamists, held in check by Saddam, started.

At a church in Basra I visited a month after the war ended, the women complained of attacks against them for not wearing the Islamic veil. I saw many Christian-owned shops that had been firebombed, with many of the owners killed for exercising their legal right to sell alcohol. Two years and many church attacks later, Iraq may still be occupied by Christian foreign powers, but the Islamist plan to ethnically cleanse Iraq of its nearly 2,000-year-old Assyrian and Armenian Christian communities is reaching fruition.

There is nothing unusual about the persecution of Iraqi Christians, or the unwillingness of other Christians to help them. Rising nationalism and fundamentalism around the world have meant that Christianity is going back to its roots as the religion of the persecuted. There are now more than 300 million Christians who are either threatened with violence or legally discriminated against simply because of their faith — more than any other religion. Christians are no longer, as far as I am aware, thrown to the lions. But from China, North Korea and Malaysia, through India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they are subjected to legalised discrimination, violence, imprisonment, relocation and forced conversion. Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision and sometimes — such as the would-be EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione — hounded out of political office.

I am no Christian, but rather a godless atheist whose soul doesn’t want to be saved, thank you. I may not believe in the man with the white beard, but I do believe that all persecution is wrong. The trouble is that the trendies who normally champion human rights seem to think persecution is fine, so long as it’s only against Christians. While Muslims openly help other Muslims, Christians helping Christians has become as taboo as jingoistic nationalism.

On the face of it, the idea of Christians facing serious persecution seems as far-fetched as a carpenter saving humanity. Christianity is the world’s most followed religion, with two billion believers, and by far its most powerful. It is the most popular faith in six of the seven continents, and in both of the world’s two biggest economies, the US and Europe. Seven of the G8 richest industrial nations are majority Christian, as are four out of five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The cheek-turners control the vast majority of the world’s weapons of mass destruction.

When I bumped into George Bush in the breakfast room of the US embassy in Brussels last month, standing right behind me were two men in uniform carrying the little black ‘nuclear football’, containing the codes to enable the world’s most powerful Christian to unleash the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal. Christians claiming persecution seem as credible as Bill Gates pleading poverty. But just as Christian-majority armies control Iraq as it ethnically cleanses itself of its Christian community, so the power of Christian countries is of little help to the Christian persecuted where most Christians now live: the Third World.

Across the Islamic world, Christians are systematically discriminated against and persecuted. Saudi Arabia — the global fountain of religious bigotry — bans churches, public Christian worship, the Bible and the sale of Christmas cards, and stops non-Muslims from entering Mecca. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking, blaspheming or Bible-bashing, as some British citizens have found. Just last month, furthermore, Saudi Arabia announced that only Muslims can become citizens.

The Copts of Egypt make up half the Christians in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. They inhabited the land before the Islamic conquest, and still make up a fifth of the population. By law they are banned from being president of the Islamic Republic of Egypt or attending Al Azhar University, and severely restricted from joining the police and army. By practice they are banned from holding any high political or commercial position. Under the 19th-century Hamayouni decrees, Copts must get permission from the president to build or repair churches — but he usually refuses. Mosques face no such controls.

Government-controlled TV broadcasts anti-Copt propaganda, while giving no airtime to Copts. It is illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, but legal for Christians to convert to Islam. Christian girls — and even the wives of Christian priests — are abducted and forcibly converted to Islam, recently prompting mass demonstrations. A report by Freedom House in Washington concludes: ‘The cumulative effect of these threats creates an atmosphere of persecution and raises fears that during the 21st century the Copts may have a vastly diminished presence in their homelands.’

Fr Drew Christiansen, an adviser to the US Conference of Bishops, recently conducted a study which stated that ‘all over the Middle East, Christians are under pressure. “The cradle of Christianity� is under enormous pressure from demographic decline, the growth of Islamic militancy, official and unofficial discrimination, the Iraq war, the Palestinian Intifada, failed peace policies and political manipulation.’

In the world’s most economically successful Muslim nation, Malaysia, the world’s only deliberate affirmative action programme for a majority population ensures that Muslims are given better access to jobs, housing and education. In the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, some 10,000 Christians have been killed in the last few years by Muslims trying to Islamify the Moluccas.

In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, most of the five million Christians live as an underclass, doing work such as toilet-cleaning. Under the Hudood ordinances, a Muslim can testify against a non-Muslim in court, but a non-Muslim cannot testify against a Muslim. Blasphemy laws are abused to persecute Christians. In the last few years, dozens of Christians have been killed in bomb and gun attacks on churches and Christian schools.

In Nigeria, 12 states have introduced Sharia law, which affects Christians as much as Muslims. Christian girls are forced to wear the Islamic veil at school, and Christians are banned from drinking alcohol. Thousands of Christians have been killed in the last few years in the ensuing violence.

Although persecution of Christians is greatest in Muslim countries, it happens in countries of all religions and none. In Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, religious tension led to 44 churches being attacked in the first four months of 2004, with 140 churches being forced to close because of intimidation. In India, the rise of Hindu nationalism has lead to persecution not just of Muslims but of Christians. There have been hundreds of attacks against the Christian community, which has been in India since ad 100. The government’s affirmative action programme for untouchables guarantees jobs and loans for poor Hindus and Buddhists, but not for Christians.

Last year in China, which has about 70 million Christians, more than 100 ‘house churches’ were closed down, and dozens of priests imprisoned. If you join the Communist party, you get special privileges, but you can only join if you are atheist. In North Korea, Christians are persecuted as anti-communist elements, and dissidents claim they are not just imprisoned but used in chemical warfare experiments.

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, blames rising global religious tension. ‘More and more Christians are seen as the odd ones out — they are seen as transplants from the West, and not really trusted. It is getting very much worse.’

Even in what was, before multiculturalism, known as Christendom, Christians are persecuted. I have spoken to dozens of former Muslims who have converted to Christianity in Britain, and who are shunned by their community, subjected to mob violence, forced out of town, threatened with death and even kidnapped. The Barnabas Trust knows of 3,000 such Christians facing persecution in this country, but the police and government do nothing.

You get the gist. Dr Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Centre for Religious Freedom in Washington, estimates that there are 200 million Christians who face violence because of their faith, and 350 million who face legally sanctioned discrimination in terms of access to jobs and housing. The World Evangelical Alliance wrote in a report to the UN Human Rights Commission last year that Christians are ‘the largest single group in the world which is being denied human rights on the basis of their faith’.

Part of the problem is old-style racism against non-whites; part of it is new-style guilt. If all this were happening to the world’s Sikhs or Muslims simply because of their faith, you can be sure it would lead the 10 O’Clock News and the front page of the Guardian on a regular basis. But the BBC, despite being mainly funded by Christians, is an organisation that promotes ridicule of the Bible, while banning criticism of the Koran. Dr Marshall said: ‘Christians are seen as Europeans and Americans, which means you get a lack of sympathy which you would not get if they were Tibetan Buddhists.’

Christians themselves are partly to blame for all this. Some get a masochistic kick out of being persecuted, believing it brings them closer to Jesus, crucified for His beliefs. Christianity uniquely defines itself by its persecution, and its forgiveness of its persecutors: the Christian symbol is the method of execution of its founder. Christianity was a persecuted religion for its first three centuries, until Emperor Constantine decided that worshipping Jesus was better for winning battles than worshipping the sun. In contrast, Mohammed was a soldier and ruler who led his people into victorious battle against their enemies. In the hundred years after the death of Mohammed, Islam conquered and converted most of North Africa and the Middle East in the most remarkable religious expansion in history.

To this day, while Muslims stick up for their co-religionists, Christians — beyond a few charities — have given up such forms of discrimination. Dr Sookhdeo said: ‘The Muslims have an Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community] whereas Christians do not have Christendom. There is no Christian country that says, “We are Christian and we will help Christians.�’

As a liberal democrat atheist, I believe all persecuted people should be helped equally, irrespective of their religion. But the guilt-ridden West is ignoring people because of their religion. If non-Christians like me can sense the nonsense, how does it make Christians feel? And how are they going to react? The Christophobes worried about rising Christian fundamentalism in Britain should understand that it is a reaction to our double standards. And as long as our double standards exist, Christian fundamentalism will grow.

Anthony Browne is Europe correspondent of the Times