By Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — The unexplained disappearance of a Coptic priest’s wife in Upper Egypt has led today a sit-in staged by thousands of Copts at the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo, to protest what they consider “collusion by the state security services.” There are rumors that Islamists have abducted her. They promised to continue with their sit-in until the state security divulges her whereabouts.
Nearly three thousand demonstrators, joined by clergy, protested the lack of protection for Copts by state security, chanting “They abducted the wife of our priest, tomorrow they will abduct us” and “Where are our abducted girls or is it because they are Christians?” (video)
Police surrounded the Cathedral to prevent the demonstrators from going out to the streets.
On Monday, July 19, Father Tedaos Samaan, priest at St. Georges Church in Deir Mawas, Minya Governorate, returned home to find that his wife was missing from the previous night. He said that he was on a short visit to his parents with his toddler son, as his teacher wife Kamila Shehata was on a short placement to another school.
According to Father Tedaos (aged 30), the last times he spoke to his wife (24) was at 9.15 PM when she told him that she was at home, and was on her way to overnight at her parent’s home, 100 meters away. She never arrived there.
Anba Agapios, Bishop of the dioceses of Delga and Deir Mawas, deplored the treatment by officials of the state security apparatus in Minya. They told him that they have the priest’s wife with them and promised to deliver her to her family within hours and then they came back and retracted their statements and their promises to him. Consequently he asked his congregations to go to Cairo and stage a sit-in at St. Mark’s Cathedral, until state security acts. He appealed to Copts in all the Egyptian governorates to stand together alongside their brethren during their sit-in.
In an aired interview on July 21 with the newly launched US-based Coptic Hope TV, Father Tedaos said that nearly 3000 of Deir Mawas youths and the neighboring villages “have hired buses to go to the Cairo for the sit-in, however, state security intercepted and detained them on the roads. “Where is the freedom? Are we not allowed to go to our father’s house [the Pope] and speak out of what is ailing us?” he said. “But their brothers in Cairo and the other areas will make their voice heard,” he assured.
The priest complained of the treatment by the authorities. “Whenever I phone them, they say they have no news and they do nothing. They only give me pain-killers, nothing more.” He said state security knows the whereabouts of everyone, “they can even find a needle anywhere in the whole of Egypt.”
Father Tedaos said that he obtained the last calls his wife received on her mobile phone from her service provider, and it was a call from an Azhar (related to Al-Azhar) colleague. Father Tedaos went as far as saying in his interview that this Azhar colleague has been planning for one year to send his teacher wife to a placement to another village school. “I gave this information to the security officers, but no one bothered to interrogate him. Now he has completely disappeared,” he added.
Coptic activist Sherif Ramzy said that the priest represents the Copts and any assault on him is an assault on all the Copts.
Father Tedaos said that apart from his wife, there have been five other Coptic females who were abducted from Deir Mawas in the last 50 days. “But to abduct a wife of a priest is something else, as he represents the Church,” said Sherif Ramzy.
“It is a sin what is happening to the Christians in Egypt,” Father Tedaos said. “If the Islamists want to kill us, let them go ahead and do it,” he said.
Father Tedaos appealed to President Mubarak for the return of his wife.
By Mary Abdelmassih
AINA) — The head of the Coptic Church in Egypt has rejected a court ruling (AINA 5-30-20) that orders the church to allow divorced Copts to remarry in the church. In a press conference held on Tuesday June 8, Pope Shenouda, reading from the statement issued by the Holy Synod’s 91 Bishops including himself said “The Coptic Church respects the law, but does not accept rulings which are against the Bible and against its religious freedom which is guaranteed by the Constitution.” He went on to say “the recent ruling is not acceptable to our conscience, and we can not implement it.”
He also said that marriage is a holy sacrament of a purely religious nature and not merely an “administrative act.” This statement came in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling which said that the duties of the church was administrative. He pointed out that the second marriage for divorcees is a religious issue, governed by the Bible.
Pope Shenouda added that Islamic Law (Sharia) says “judge between people of the Scripture according to what they believe in,” and this principle came in all personal status laws. He pointed out that many of the provisions of the Court of Cassation and the Supreme Constitutional Court stressed the principle of the application of Christian law on its followers.
In answer to fears expressed by Copts of the possibility of the Pope being imprisoned for not implementing the ruling, he confirmed that the Patriarch is not a public official and is therefore not bound by civil provisions. “The law of religious leaders is the Gospel and the Church Laws,” he said.
During the press conference, he lashed out at the Media which, accused him and the Coptic Church of being “a State within a State” that disrespects court rulings, and misinterpreting facts about the Coptic Church forbidding its followers to marry for a second time. He explained that widowers and those who have obtained a divorce through the Church — according to the teachings of the Bible — and who are the “innocent partner” are issued a permit to re-marry, but not the “guilty partner.” He said that whoever gets a civil divorce is free to marry but not in the Coptic Church. “Let whoever wants to remarry to do it away from us. There are many ways and churches to marry in,” said Pope Shenuda III. “Whoever wants to remain within the church has to abide by its laws.”
Pope Shenouda further threatened to defrock any priest who allows a divorced Christian to remarry, except in cases where the divorce was on the grounds of adultery. Those that have remarried after divorce will not be allowed in Church.
At present the Coptic Church does not allow re-marriage except in very limited circumstances of adultery and conversion to another faith. The Church maintains that these rules safeguard the Christian family.
According to Bishop Bola of Tanta, who is in charge of divorce matters in the Coptic church, “there are just over 200 cases of divorce presented to his office every year “and not 20,000 or even 2,000,000 as some newspapers claimed.”
Azza Suleiman, director of the Center for Women’s Issues, said there are currently five million postponed divorce cases in Egypt, in addition to 13 million cases under consideration by the personal status courts. She added that a divorce occurs every six minutes in the country, and that 250 thousand women resort to the courts annually to obtain divorce.
The Pope evaded answering a question presented by a reporter in the press conference on whether the court would dare order Al-Azhar to agree to a Muslim marrying a fifth wife and not only four, comparing it to the interference of the Court in the Bible teachings through its recent ruling.
A draft of a unified personal status law for all sects of Christianity, which was signed by all churches in Egypt, was submitted to the People’s Assembly by Pope Shenouda nearly 25 years ago. All churches agreed that no divorce is permitted except for adultery. “This draft law must be locked away in some one’s drawer,” he laughed. It is seen by many that passing this law is the only way to put an end to such court verdicts.
When asked during the press conference whether he will appeal to President Mubarak to sort out this controversial court ruling, he said that he does not wish to embarrass him, in case he does not like to interfere with the judiciary. However, he said, that if the President knows that the church and the millions of Copts are not happy with this ruling, he might do something about it. He said that he does not yet know what is his next step.
Ramsis El-Naggar, an attorney for the church, said that since the Administrative Court’s ruling cannot be appealed, he expects that the church will appeal the verdict in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court for an interpretation of Article 69 of the denominational regulations, which deals with the remarriage of divorcees.
A sit-in is arranged for Wednesday June 9 in front of the St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo during the Pope’s weekly sermon to protest the court’s ruling and the interference of the judiciary in the affairs of the Coptic Church.
By Yasmine Saleh – Reuters
CAIRO, June 8 (Reuters) – The head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church rejected on Tuesday a court ruling that Coptic men could remarry, saying the decision was against the church’s principles and reflected interference in its affairs.
A court upheld a ruling last week that two Coptic men had the right to remarry even though divorced, a move seen as undermining the church’s efforts to maintain authority over Christians in Muslim-majority Egypt.
The court decision was prompted by a rare intervention by Coptic Pope Shenouda who had launched an appeal on behalf of the church to overturn a similar court ruling made in March 2008.
Shenouda and 90 other officials in Egypt’s Orthodox church had signed a document against the verdict, the pope said.
“This statement expresses our rejection of the ruling,” Shenouda told a news conference, showing reporters the document.
Analysts say the ruling challenges the church’s efforts to hold sway over its flock and guard Coptic values in Egypt, where conservative Islamic trends have gained ground.
Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 78 million people. Many Christians grumble about discrimination, although some Christians have risen to ministerial rank or are top business executives. “We should examine the issue, otherwise it would suggest Copts are exhausted and (can be put) under pressure in their religion,” the pope said, saying he was discussing further legal steps, even though the latest ruling followed a final appeal.
After the ruling last month, Pope Shenouda said the church would still not allow remarriage after divorce, except in cases of separation following adultery. Tuesday’s comments were his most outspoken rejection of the ruling.
“I am announcing that the church respects the law but it does not accept rules except from the bible,” the pope said.
Under Egypt’s personal laws, marriage and divorce proceedings are based on the couple’s religion. But in any marriage between a Muslim and non-Muslim, Islamic law prevails. Divorce is an accepted practice in the Muslim community.
Relations between Egypt’s Christian and Muslim communities are generally calm, but can sometimes erupt into violence over issues such as land or inter-faith marriages and relationships.
In another case in 2002, a court ruled that a Coptic woman, the well-known Egyptian actress Hala Sidki, could divorce her Coptic husband. But she only won her case after years spent in in court and after the church relented and backed her divorce. (Editing by Edmund Blair)
By Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — In Egypt an often used defense by Muslims accused of killing Christians is insanity. According to said Coptic activist Maged Bishay, “Islamist investigators, judges and psychiatrists are only too willing to go with this pretext, to allow their fellow Muslims to ‘get away with murder’ based on the Islamic law ‘Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is an oppressed one.’”
One of the latest examples if the insanity defense was the murder of the Coptic Christian deacon George Fathi, who was killed in Alexandria on October 6, 2009, deliberately and with premeditation, by two fundamentalist brothers, 21-year-old Mohamed Abdel-Moneim and his 17-year-old brother Ahmed.
The two brothers visited George in his flat at mid-day, strangled and electrocuted him until his intestines burst out. His father, who was sitting in a coffee house facing their flat, saw smoke coming out and when he opened the door he found his son dead and disfigured. The killers opened a butane cylinder and made a fire to cause an explosion but this was averted by the father and neighbors, who testified having seen three bearded men enter the flat earlier.
When the Abdel-Moneim brothers were arrested, they said the victim tried to sexually assault them, so they killed him in self-defense. The 17-year old brother was released for being under-age and handed over to his family.
The media, orchestrated by statements issued by the Egyptian State Security, immediately propagated the claim of sexual assault and, as expected, it found support and empathy for the killer from the Muslim public.
“The accused tried to take us down this path but the investigation found no evidence that deacon George practiced homosexuality,” said Mokbel Sobhy, the victim’s family attorney. “I will file lawsuits against those newspapers for defamation of character.”
Friends of George Fathi said that he was known all over Alexandria for proselytizing Christianity, and the reason behind his killing was that he helped the sister of the Abdel-Moneim brothers convert to Christianity, and they killed him in retaliation.
During a court session on January 24, 2010, the lawyer for the defendant argued that the defendant Mohamed is suffering from mental illness and was not responsible for his actions, and asked for his client to be referred to psychiatric assessment to determine whether he was competent. The court accepted this request and adjourned the hearing until 4/24/2010.
On April 24, 2010 the presiding judge stated the psychiatric assessment of Mohamed Abdel-Moneim confirmed that he was suffering from insanity. The lawyers of the victim requested to question the doctor who issued the report and to refer the defendant to a psychiatric committee. The judge said they could choose on of the two requests, so they chose the latter.
On September 16, 2009, 35-year-old car painter Osama Araban (El-Bohyagi) went to the village of Bahgour, stabbed 63-year old Coptic Christian Abdo George Younan nine times until his intestines fell out, then severed his head from his body — an Islamic ritual beheading. He washed his bloody bayonet with the water hose which the victim was previously using, before setting off on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, to stab with intention to kill, two other Copts in two different villages, at least 10 km apart. When arrested, he confessed fully to his crime (AINA 9-21-2009)
Renowned attorney and activist Dr.Naguib Ghoraeel, head of Egyptian Union Human Rights Organization, issued a press release on September 17, accusing the Interior Ministry of lying by suggesting the incident “is a mere quarrel,” and warned them that no one will believe that the murderer is “mentally unstable,” should they use this defense.
In November 2009, Osama was referred to a psychiatric hospital for assessment, Mr. Ahmed Kelany, lawyer of the family of the beheaded victim, in an interview with The Freecopts said that “the assailant resorting to mental disorder is an attempt to escape the penalty for his crime, which is premeditated murder. This was confirmed by all the circumstances and the eyewitness testimonies.”
Another high-profile case which had the same ending, took place in Alexandria on April 14, 2006, during the last day of the Holy Lent. A series of knife attacks at three Alexandria churches resulted in the death of a 63-year-old Christian man, Noshi Girgis, and injuries to several other Christians. An attack on a fourth church was foiled. Witnesses said that the assailant called out Jihad chants during the attacks. The interior ministry claimed that only one man was responsible for the attacks and named Mahmoud Salah-Eddin Abdel-Raziq, 25, and described him as “psychologically disturbed”, even before his arrest. “This was a way to close the case file before investigations have started,” commented activist Mark Naguib at the time.
Christians were enraged by the government’s scenario that Abdel-Raziq had attacked alone three churches, miles away from each other, by walking and using public transport, all in the same morning. This version of events contradicted earlier police reports which told of three simultaneous attacks and that three men who were involved in these attacks had been arrested. Most Copts believed that it was an Islamist pre-planned attack, carried out by more than one person.
During the funeral of the murdered Copt Noshi, clashes between Muslims who were hurling stones and Christians took place, leading to arrests on both sides. The way the government dealt with this case sparked global condemnation and Coptic rallies worldwide.
Freecopts reported on Al Jazeera News report aired on April 14th, detailing the attacks on the churches and naming four different Muslim perpetrators, which corresponded with the description of the assailants given by witnesses in the different churches.
On June 29, 2006 Egypt’s prosecutor-general ordered Mahmoud Abdel-Raziq to be committed to a mental hospital after a medical evaluation and without trial, the duration of his incarceration was not specified. No news was ever heard of him after that.
Rasha Nour, head of Egypt4Christ advocacy, believes there are many “insanity” incidents which are not reported by the police; on presentation of a medical certificate, sometimes supplied by the police, the assailant is then released after the Coptic victim is forced by them to sign a reconciliation note.
(Reuters) – Egyptian Christians have called for government action against the author of a widely read novel they say insults Christianity, in an unusual case that puts freedom of expression in Muslim-majority Egypt under fresh scrutiny.
Government investigators are looking into the complaint filed by a group of Egyptian and some foreign Copts against Youssef Ziedan, a Muslim who wrote the 2008 award-winning novel Azazeel (Beelzebub).
Egyptian law prohibits insults against Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and Ziedan could be sent to jail for up to five years if prosecuted and found guilty.
“They accuse me of insulting Christianity … It’s a serious crime and this is a big shock to people, especially since the novel has been so successful,” Ziedan said.
Azazeel, which won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, backed by the Booker Prize Foundation, tells the story of a 5th-century Egyptian monk who witnesses debates over doctrine between early Christians.
During President Hosni Mubarak’s 29 years in power, the government has tolerated little political dissent and has over time adopted selective censorship of films, books and other media seen as risque or challenging to Islam.
In 1995 an Egyptian sharia court declared Egyptian intellectual Nasr Abu Zayd an apostate from Islam over his liberal, critical approach to Islamic teaching. His marriage was annulled and he was effectively forced into exile.
CLERICAL SCRUTINY
Books related to Islam must be approved by clerics at al-Azhar university, a top religious authority for Sunnis.
In the same way, Coptic Church elders scrutinize books about Christianity, but Ziedan’s novel was not vetted because it was considered a popular rather than spiritual tome, one Coptic church leader said.
But Mamdouh Ramzi, a Coptic lawyer who is among the group that have complained about Ziedan, said the novel is offensive to Christians.
“He insulted priests and bishops and said many things with no proof or evidence from books or history … He is not a Christian man, what does he know about the Church?” Ramzi asked.
The case, joined by Coptic groups in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and Austria, reflects broader complaints by Copts that they are marginalized in mainly Muslim Egypt.
“… we should receive attention from the authorities or we will start to wonder why the law does not respond unless the matter includes an insult to Islam,” Ramzi said.
Christians account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s 78 million people. Sectarian violence is not common, but disputes occasionally break out over issues involving land or women, prompting complaints by Copts that the government does too little to protect them for fear of Islamist reprisals.
The case presents Mubarak’s government, which fought a low-scale Islamist insurgency in the 1990s, with a dilemma, said Gamal Eid, who heads the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.
On the one hand, it wants to avoid criticism from Christian groups abroad and so is under pressure to act; on the other, it does not want to jail a writer at a time of human rights scrutiny before elections this year and next.
“This case has become politicized, so any outcome is possible,” Eid said.
Mubarak, who turned 82 this week, has not yet said whether he will run for a sixth term in the 2011 presidential vote.
By Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — On March 30 an administrative judicial court in Egypt dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mrs. Camilia Lutfi, mother of the Coptic Christian twins boys Mario and Andrew, against the Interior Minister, and the director of the Civil Status Department for refusing to re-instate the Christian religion on their birth certificates, and invalidate those which were forcefully changed to “Islam” in 2005 by their father Medhat Ramsis Labib, who had converted to Islam.
After his conversion, Andrew and Mario became Muslims in what is called “Islamization by dependence,” by which children follow the religion of a converted parent (to Islam only) until they reach the age of puberty (fifteen), because Islam is “the best among all religions,” according to Egyptian Court rulings.
The purpose of Lutfi’s litigation was to restore back to her twins their identity as Christians, before reaching the age of 16 in June, when they will have their national ID cards issued. Camilia said that because of the developments in their case, her worst nightmares would materialize, in which they would have Islam as religious affiliation on their ID cards. “If they change to Christianity after that, they will be considered apostates,” she told Freecopts advocacy. She expressed her surprise at the intransigence of the judiciary in dealing with the issue of her sons, especially after they have already reached the legal age of 15-years, when they can choose their own religion. “The boys have lived this tragedy for the last ten years, through no fault of their own.”
ElYoum 7 Newspaper reported that 15-years-old Mario and Andrew were extremely disappointed with the court verdict, saying “faith is not by force, we want to remain Christians and we do not wish to become Muslims.” Both boys are practicing Christians and were consecrated last year as deacons in their regular church in Alexandria.
The court explained in its verdict, which was issued on April 14, that Camilia Lutfi has not presented a verdict from a relevant court (it did not say which court) proving the change of her sons’ religion from Islam to Christianity. “How come that when their father changed their religion from Christianity to Islam, he required no court verdict, and now that they want to revert back to Christianity, the court requires a verdict?” she told Freecopts.
Although the mother’s lawyers presented to the court a portfolio containing 15 different certificates proving they are Christians, contradicting what was written on their birth certificates, the court said in its reasoning that it does not recognize the validity of a certificate issued by the Church as a document of change of religion from Islam to Christianity, as “churches by law are not competent to issue such certificates.” The courts only accept certificates of religion change from Al-Azhar (the Muslim theology school in Cairo). Moreover the Court said that there is no law to force the Interior minister and the Civil Status Department chief to change the religion of the boys on their documents without a court ruling to this effect.
Camilia criticized the judiciary in Egypt for being biased, based on her personal experience. “I do not believe the recent verdict has been taken solely by the judges. I feel there is a higher authority which orders the judges to decide in a certain way, even if it goes against the documents in front of them,” she told Freecopts.
Mario and Andrew were born on June 24, 1994 to Christian parents, sea captain Medhat Ramsis and tax inspector Camilia Lutfi, but in February 2000 their father converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman. In 2005 Medhat changed their twin boys birth certificates to show that they are Muslims, born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother.
The case of Mario and Andrew caught the attention of the media in May 2007, after they challenged the Ministry of Education which forced them to sit in for the Islamic Religion exams at school, where students are obliged to pass in order to be promoted to a higher class. They refused to answer the questions. On his answer sheet Andrew wrote “I am Christian” and Mario wrote “My religion is Christianity.” They failed the exam and had to re-take it, but again insisted on writing these single phrases. Due to public pressure, the Minister of Education exempted them from passing those exams until their case was finalized by the court. On national television they declared: “We do not want to be Muslims. We are born Christians, will remain and die as Christians.”
After a five-year legal battle, Lutfi won a landmark victory in June 2009 when Egypt’s Court of Cassation gave her the right to retain custody of Andrew and Mario. The Court also affirmed, for the first time, the right of a non-Muslim mother to retain custody of her child until the age of fifteen, as stipulated by Egypt’s Personal Status Law, even when the child’s father converts to Islam and the state automatically changes the child’s religion as a result. Previously it was only until the age of seven, which is considered the age of “religious maturity” by the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence (6-20-2009).
At a press conference held on Thursday April 22, Lutfi said that the refusal of the judiciary to establish the religion of her children as Christians is a blow to the principles of citizenship, and a “disregard” for Christianity and Christians. She called on President Mubarak to protect the freedom of religion by issuing laws “to tie down the hands of the judiciary in deciding on these issues without a legal basis.” She also addressed a message to the President of the State Council saying that all judgments regarding conversion to Christianity take as a starting point that Islam is the State religion, and the State guarantees freedom of religion but ends up by “insulting Christianity and those wishing to convert to Christianity.”
During the press conference, Camelia also called on the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar to issue a Fatwa (Islamic religious edict) to remind the authorities of the Quranic verse “Let there be no compulsion in religion.”
Dr. Awad Shafik Awad, international attorney based in Switzerland and President of the Confederation of Coptic Human Rights Organizations in Europe, stated his intention to refer the case of Mario and Andrew to the international courts, after all stages of litigation in Egypt have been exhausted. He said that the recent court’s refusal to prove the Christian faith of the twin boys was “unjust and has nothing to do with the law.”
Coptic attorney Ramsis elNaggar stated that his law firm represents thousands of Christian children who were forced to become Muslims following the conversion to Islam of one of their parents, and tried in vain to revert back to Christianity.
In 2007 the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights issued a joint report with Human Rights Watch entitled ‘Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom’, regarding involuntary “conversions.” It quoted 89 cases of Egyptians whose religious affiliation in official documents was changed by the state to Islam against their will — and in some instances without their knowledge — after their fathers converted to Islam. Moreover, the Interior Ministry has refused to change their religious affiliation to Christianity when they reached the age of fifteen, in violation of the law. The report highlighted the far-reaching consequences for the daily lives of those affected, including choosing a spouse, educating one’s children, or conducting the most basic financial and other transactions (report).
Last month before the court dismissed their case, CBN News carried out an interview with Mario and Andrew, bringing their fight to retain their Christian identity and the fear of being considered as apostates and getting killed to the international public (video).
Renowned Coptic activist and writer Magdi Khalil calls for the non-application of Islamic Sharia law on Christian families in Egypt, saying that the case of Mario and Andrew represents the situation of the Copts under Sharia. The Egyptian Personal Status Law for Muslims and non-Muslims of mixed religions or denominations is based on the Sharia law according to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence,”which discriminates against fundamental human rights, and against women in general as lawyer Ms Safaa Zaki describes it,” he said. Khalil warns about a wider application of the Second article of the Egyptian Constitution which stipulates that the principles of Islamic Sharia law are the main source of legislation. “If Sharia is applied to all the laws, this would be a real catastrophe to the secular state, for Muslims and Christians alike and a a bomb ready to explode,” he said.
By Joseph Abrams – FOXNews.com
Bipartisan group of lawmakers tells State Department to act on the “grim reality” faced by Coptic Christian women in Egypt
Seventeen members of Congress are pressing the State Department to act on the “grim reality” faced by Coptic Christian women in Egypt, who frequently are coerced into violent forced marriages that leave them victim to rape and captive slavery.
The bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote on April 16 to Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca, who heads up American efforts to thwart human trafficking around the globe.
In their letter, they exhort the State Department to confront the “criminal phenomenon” of forced marriage they say is on the rise in Egypt, where the 7 million Coptic Christians often face criminal prosecution and civic violence for their rejection of Islam.
“I think it is about as bad as it can be” for Copts and other religious minorities in Egypt, said Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who penned the letter. “It is very tough to be a Coptic Christian.”
The official communication to the State Department outlined just what women face when forced into marriages with Muslim men: “physical and sexual violence, captivity … exploitation in forced domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation, and financial benefit to the individuals who secure the forced conversion of the victim.”
Wolf and the other lawmakers say this bears all the hallmarks of human trafficking and want the State Department to include reports of the abductions in their next Trafficking in Persons report, which is due in June.
“Keep in mind that we have given Egypt about $53 billion since Camp David” — the 1978 peace accords between Israel and Egypt that were arranged by the U.S. government — “so we’re actually funding them,” Wolf said.
The State Department’s 2009 report on trafficking singled out Egypt for its Level II Watchlist, noting that the government made only “minimal efforts to prevent trafficking in persons” last year.
But while it notes the plight of Sudanese women and others in bondage in Egypt, it d
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