“There is pressure being practiced to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands.”
Yet another Islamic Tolerance Alert: “Abduction and Forced Islamization of Christian Coptic Girls Continues in Egypt,” by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, August 11:
The systematic abduction and forced Islamization of Coptic minor girls in Egypt is a frequent, dangerous and a rapidly escalating phenomenon. The problem was brought to light by the Coptic Pope Shenouda III as far back as December 17th, 1976, when he protested during a conference held in Alexandria that “there is pressure being practiced to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands” and demanded that the abducted girls be brought back to their families.
Dr. Waheed Ala, renowned Coptic activist and researcher at the Observatory of Religions in Switzerland, believes that the issue of abducted Coptic girls forms the most complex problem in the relations between Christians and Muslims of Egypt — especially because abductions are done in cooperation between Saudi-funded associations and the Egyptian State Security.
These frequent abduction cases are reported by Coptic human rights advocacies but rarely by the main stream media, and when, they are mostly portrayed as ‘an elopement of a loving teen couple.’
Another recent victim of abduction is 15-year old Marian Bishay, who went out on July 15, 2009 to get dinner for her mother and young brothers from a local restaurant, 50 meters away from where she lives in Omrania, Giza, but failed to return home. The local police succumbed to pressure and issued a missing person report after initially refusing.
The Bishay family, whose father works in Kuwait, reported the matter to Free Copts advocacy in Cairo, asking for support. According to activist Osama Eid “the police just shrugged their shoulders and said there is nothing we can do, you search — which we actually did.”
When the abducted girl’s father, Amir Bishay, returned from Kuwait due to the incident, the police refused to issue another report under the pretext that they investigated the initial report with no results. The police also released three suspects who worked at that same restaurant….