The more things change in the new, post-revolutionary Egypt, the more they stay the same. As Coptic Pope Shenouda III warned in 1976: "There is a practice to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands."
Here is another case in the recent surge in disappearances of Christian girls. "Tensions Rise in Egypt Over Two Missing Christian Girls," by Mary Abdelmassih for the Assyrian International News Agency, June 26:
(AINA) -- Tension is escalating over the case of 14-year-old Nancy Magdy Fathy, and her 16-year old cousin Christine Ezzat Fathy, who have disappeared and allegedly converted to Islam. Many parties are being pulled into the row over their future, including Al Azhar, the Church, activists and lately Islamist organizations, which are threatening violence against church.
The story of the missing girls became public after they disappeared while on their way to church on Sunday June 12. A the two day sit-in staged by Copts in front of the Minya Security Headquarters, demanding Nancy and Christine's return, focused attention on their story. Rumors in the media emerged as to their whereabouts, the identity of the perpetrators and whether the girls were actually traded to another Muslims gang.
Nearly two weeks after they disappeared, Nancy and Christine were found in Cairo wearing Burkas. They were incidentally stopped in the street by a police officer when he noticed that one of them had a cross tattooed on her wrist, as many Copts have. The girls told the policeman they converted to Islam and did not marry any Muslims sheikh as the newspapers said, but fearing the wrath of their parents, they sought shelter at the home of a Muslim man. He issued a report of the incident and let them go.
Forced converts have been told before that their parents or families hate them, have rejected them, or will hurt or kill them if they come back -- the same thing happened to Saba and Aneela Masih of Pakistan. It is a revealing projection of Islam's death penalty for apostasy.
Nancy and Christine subsequently surrendered at a Cairo police station.
An investigation into their disappearance was launched, as their parents accused two Muslim brothers from a neighboring village of abducting them. They were also asked about the video clip which appeared on the Internet, taken in Tahrir Square, where Nancy and Christine allegedly converted to Islam.
According to the investigators, the Christian minors said they converted to Islam of their own free will, and refused to return to their families, and even applied for protection from them. The prosecution decided to put them in a state care home and provide protection for them, until the completion of the investigation. Authorities also wanted an Al-Azhar scholar to determine if they really believe in Islam.
This has angered their families, who said their girls are minors and should not be subjected to such procedures. Both families and the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights Organization protested on Saturday, June 25 in front of the office of the prosecutor general, and demanded for their children to be returned to them.
Al Azhar and the Fatwa (religious edict) Committee denied that the two Coptic teenagers had converted to Islam, because they are still minors and have not yet reached 18 years of age, as is required by law. [...]
Nonetheless, the jihadists have their next pretext for violence:
The Egyptian daily newspaper ElYoum7 published a statement from the Islamist "Alliance for the support of New Muslim Women," in which the group threatened to carry out "extended protests" in all governorates in Egypt if Nancy and Christine are returned to the church. The Alliance emphasized in its statement the protests this time will escalate violently: "We will not retreat this time, until each captive is free and out of the monasteries in which they are held as prisoners." The statement also said "We say it openly, that we will not go back again to the era when newly converted Muslim women were delivered to the church, which wants to tempt them away from their religion, or forcibly detain them in reprisal for choosing freely their faith."
In the past the Alliance had staged over 20 demonstrations every Friday in support of Kamilia Shehata, the priest's wife whom they claim converted to Islam but was held captive by the church, despite of Al Azhar confirming that she never set foot there and her appearance twice in public to refute all their claims of her conversion...
a friend interviewed a prominant copt in sydney recently. he sadly confirmed this. a huge spike in coptic women and girls disappearing.
It happens now more than in the past.There are many reasons why I think our gov is behind all what is happening to us.
They are behind every evil happened and every accident. They do not arrest anyone or put anyone to trial for any massacre happened to us but their army was shooting the Christians in the recent clashes nowadays.
Even those girls that they kidnap and make a shit story about how they became muslims and how the church want them back is all about find a reason to provoke muslims and begin a series of persecution acts toward us.they are criminals and we facing them in Jesus name that is why they feel defeated.
The Disappearance, Forced Conversions, and Forced Marriages of Coptic Christian Women in Egypt
Wait a second! Weren't the Muslims murdering and rioting under the claim that a pair of women had converted to Islam and were being held against their will? And yet here we see it is Muslims kidnapping Christian women and holding them against their will. Is there anything more malicious, anti-human, and evil than the ideology behind these criminal acts?
Where is the internation criminal court when you need them? Here you have muslims abducting Christian girls, you have Muslim leaders involved in conspiracy to commit murder by sending out their followers to kill Christians, blow up buildings and deprive their victims of civil rights. To murder Christians fits within the definition of crimes against humanity and all we see is a report in the newspaper but no action. It takes the police 2-3 HOURS to get to a reported attack against a Christian church. In the US it takes the police 2-3 minutes to get to the scene of a violent crime. What did these guys do stop at the donut shop? Someone needs to step in and stop this nonsense. If our president sends American troops and aircraft to Libya, why not Egypt? It is time to stop this Muslim onslaught. Come on U.N. is there anyone there who has any guts to stand up to these cowards whose actions are justified by their religion and its leaders. NO MORE MONEY to any Islamic country, period.
It's alarming that 14 year old and 16 year old can be brainwashed to the extent that they fear their own families, in such short time. Found wearing Burka, afraid to go to police or simply return to their family. Forcible conversion so common in that part of the world, the Christian families should protect their own daughters with knowledge.
I strongly suspect that these crimes occur due to polygamy in the Muslim world. When old codgers take a second, third or fourth wife, of course there will not be enough women for all the young men to marry. The only way out of the problem, besides killing the young men off in wars, is to take girls from non-Muslims, whose cultural mores usually prevent their societies from coming into such a pinch. I'm not the type for strong language, but this is pure parasitism. Islam is a parasitic religion.
I'm not surprised. Lots of cultures can be pretty sticky about female honor. In the Cretan revolt of the 1890's and earlier rebellions against the Turks in the Balkans, Christian fathers sharpened their knives to use on their families before the Turks could come and rape them. Nikos Kazantzakis recalled his father making precisely this preparation in early childhood. The entire population of a defeated Christian village in the Aegean danced off a cliff to their deaths to escape violation. In China, during World War II, a woman violated by the Japanese was expected to kill herself out of a sense of honor.
This being said, I do not doubt for a moment that there's a lot of abduction, rape, and forced conversion done by Muslim males against non-Muslim females.
Also, in this case, while I see abduction and forced conversion as a real possibility, I would not yet rule out foolish crushes on neighbors' sons. That's also a story as old as the human race, and happens even in societies where there's a brittle and prickly sense of honor.
Virgil wrote:
Wait a second! Weren't the Muslims murdering and rioting under the claim that a pair of women had converted to Islam and were being held against their will? And yet here we see it is Muslims kidnapping Christian women and holding them against their will.
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Virgil, these were Christian women who had been kidnapped by Muslim "neighbors", who then claimed the women had converted to Islam. When the women were found, they denied to police and the media that they had converted to Islam.
Muslim groups ignored this and then claimed that the women were actually now Muslim—and that their return to their families now meant that they were Muslim women "being held" by Christians.
in other words, pure projection. The story was covered here at JW quite extensively.
SISAC wrote:
It's alarming that 14 year old and 16 year old can be brainwashed to the extent that they fear their own families, in such short time. Found wearing Burka, afraid to go to police or simply return to their family. Forcible conversion so common in that part of the world, the Christian families should protect their own daughters with knowledge.
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I wouldn't assume that that is what happened, SISAC. Often, kidnapped girls are told that if they do not acquiesce that their families will be targeted with violence—an all too common occurrence when families try to rescue the kidnapped. I believe many Infidel girls go along with their conversion and "marriage" to Muslims in order to protect their families.
Muslim's often prey on their victims' caring for their loved ones.