They haven’t yet succeeded in killing her, in accord with Muhammad’s words, “If somebody discards his religion, kill him.” But don’t call them moderates yet: it looks as if they’re going to keep trying.
Islamic Tolerance Alert: “Egypt: Police Release Christian To Her Violent Family,” from Compass Direct:
ISTANBUL, July 23 (Compass Direct News) — Egyptian police in Alexandria who last week arrested a Christian convert woman today handed her over to her fanatical Islamist family, who beat her before driving her away.
Eyewitnesses said family members of Shaymaa (Eman) Muhammad al-Sayed, 26, today dragged her screaming from the police station where she had been closeted. According to the eyewitnesses outside Alexandria’s Bab-Sharky police station, Al-Sayed’s relatives severely beat her in the Shatby Cemetery behind the police station at 4 p.m.
She was then forced into a family microbus and driven off toward the district of Abeis, east of Alexandria, where her father’s knitting factory is located.
One week ago, on July 16, these same family members openly threatened to kill Al-Sayed for leaving Islam to become a Christian, after spotting her walking through a fair in Alexandria.
Local police promptly took her into “protective custody,” allegedly to prevent her physical harm at the hands of her irate Muslim relatives.
But instead of protecting her, local police and State Security Investigation (SSI) officials have subjected the threatened woman to days of severe physical and emotional torture. Her maltreatment included electrical shocks, beatings and being photographed naked.
Her repeated requests to press charges against her family for attempting to kidnap and kill her were ignored.
At one point, Col. Abdel-Ghany Hamada of the Division of Public Affairs commanded four of his officers to beat her with their shoes while he interrogated her for hours about her forged Christian identity papers.
After becoming a Christian in January 2003, Al-Sayed had obtained Christian identity papers under the name of Maryan Eleya Saleeb and married a Christian man. Egyptian law does not permit anyone born a Muslim to change his or her religion, nor can a Muslim woman marry a Christian.