More of the celebrated Islamic tolerance for other religions comes from Egypt: “A Coptic Christian secretly married to a woman convert from Islam was arrested for the second time last week while trying to leave Egypt for Canada.” This from Compass Direct.
“Boulos Farid Rezek-Allah Awad, 31, was stopped at the Libyan border on November 25, the first day of the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan. He was detained by Egyptian border police for 12 hours, from mid afternoon until 3 a.m. the next morning. Once the authorities had confirmed the Coptic Christian’s identity, he was refused exit permission and then released.
“Rezek-Allah returned to Cairo, only to be summoned to the security police’s Lazghouly headquarters after the holidays had concluded. There he was questioned and threatened by Hussein Gohar, a security police officer monitoring his case since he was first arrested nine months ago.
“When Gohar again demanded to know the whereabouts of the Christian’s wife, Rezek-Allah told him that she had managed to leave the country ahead of him. Vowing that he would find her, the officer declared to Rezek-Allah, ‘I’ll bring her back and cut her into pieces in front of you.’
“When he was released from questioning three days ago, police told Rezek-Allah he was blacklisted and would never be allowed to leave Egypt.
“Rezek-Allah is accused of breaking Egyptian law by marrying a Muslim woman, Enas Yehya Abdel Aziz. Now 27, the woman had changed her name to Enas Badawi Yousef Guirguis after becoming a Christian three years ago.”
It is against Islamic law in general for a non-Muslim man to marry a Muslim woman, although a Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman.
“Under Islamic law enforced in Egypt, a Christian man can only marry a Muslim woman if he agrees to embrace her faith. But in Rezek-Allah’s case, his wife had abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity. It remains illegal in Egypt for Muslims to change their legal religious status to Christian, since this ‘insults’ Islam.”
During a previous arrest, “interrogators beat, insulted and hung the pharmacist by his arms, and accused him of evangelizing Muslims and falsifying legal documents. Under torture, he admitted that when he married his wife Enas, he knew she was a former Muslim who had secretly changed her identity. . . .
“Seeing no other solution, Rezek-Allah decided to fly to Canada to take his final pharmacy-license exams. He already had a valid immigration visa for Canada, granted when he passed his initial qualifying exam the previous year. But shortly after he boarded an Air Alitalia flight at the Cairo airport on August 11, security police came aboard and arrested him off the plane. . . .
“On October 19, the public prosecutor hearing Rezek-Allah’s case agreed to drop the charges against him if he agreed to the cancellation of his illegal marriage certificate. However, the court left Enas named as the ‘first accused’ on charges of falsifying an official document and blaspheming against a heavenly religion.”