It's not as bad as it is in Pakistan, but young Coptic Christian girls in Egypt are being kidnapped, and then the local police and government authorities are often not very helpful about getting the girls back to their families. In many cases the authorities are reluctant to help. Why would the authorities be reluctant to help? Because the country of Egypt is majority Muslim and many of these Muslims hold a view that once one of these girls has been converted to Islam, she should not be permitted to be returned to her family because then they would inevitably convert her back to their religion and lead the girl to turn away from Islam. So the authorities do not follow the laws, or the justice system is blatantly perverted, with the police, prosecutor, and judge intentionally overlooking things, to try to justify not returning the girl to her family. The following articles are being copied here in case the links stop working. Egyptian Court Refuses to Return Kidnapped Christian Girl to Family Dan Wooding January 27, 2012 ASSIST News Service A Middle East journalist is reporting that an Egyptian court has ordered a 16-year-old Christian girl to be held in a state-owned care home, instead of returning her to her family, allegedly for expressing her wish to convert to Islam. “She is to be held in state care until she reaches the age of 18. The decision has been widely criticized by Copts, who say it encourages Islamists to continue unabated the abduction of Christian minors for conversion to Islam,” said Mary Abdelmassih, writing for the Assyrian International News Agency. “The decision taken by a prosecutor in Boulaq El Dakrour district, Giza, makes him an abductor and makes the law an accomplice to the crime,” said Dr. Oliver, a Coptic activist. “What this prosecutor committed is a crime -- he legitimized child abduction and detention.” Dr. Oliver explained that these crimes are committed by thugs, criminals and kidnappers of children and, when the State legitimizes them, it makes itself a partner. In addition, he said, placing a girl under care for allegedly wishing to convert to Islam while still a minor is “tantamount to abduction by the State.” Abdelmassih went on to say that the abduction of 16-year old Amira Gamal Saber, from Saft-el-Khamar village, Minya province, who disappeared from her home over 40 days ago, has turned into a tug of war between the Christian family and Islamist lawyers from an organization named Alliance for the Support of New Muslim Females. They claim that they are “defending the rights of their Muslim sisters” and that “according to the Egyptian constitution, the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia), which should apply to both Muslims and non-Muslims, and therefore at 16 years of age, Amira can chose her own religion.” According to the Al-Azhar Islamic Institution, a person cannot convert to Islam before reaching the age of 18 years. In December 2011, Amira attended a school lesson but failed to return home. Her teacher said she had left school with two veiled girls. Her family looked for her in all the neighboring villages and were informed that she had accompanied three Muslim men to Cairo. They filed a report with the police on December 4. The head of security in Minya confirmed her kidnapping and assured her family that the culprits were being watched and not to take any action until they were detained. However, time passed and nothing was heard from security. The journalist added that attorney, Tawfik Kamel, who accompanied the Sabry family to Giza, said that on January 15 a man named Mohammad Ahmed Ibrahim phoned the family and said that Amira had been staying at his home in Boulaq El Dakrour for the last 38 days and asked for 200,000 Egyptian pounds ($33,110 USD) for her return. “The family asked to speak to their daughter, and she spoke to her mother,” he added. According to Kamel, “We had no idea that Islamists were involved. We went to Giza to pay a ransom to someone and collect our daughter, instead we were directed to the police station where Amira is, and then we were told there that government prosecutors are handling the case.” They were detained and interrogated for seven hours. “We were surprised to find a bearded lawyer,” said Kamel, “backed by another 12 Salafist lawyers, appearing in the session, claiming that Amira wants to convert to Islam, and that she does not want to return home as she is afraid of retribution.” He presented prosecution with the birth certificate proving Amira is 16-years-old and a certificate from the Fatwa department of Al Azhar saying they have no record of her, and conversion is not permitted for people under 18 years old. “We thought we would bring Amira home but were stunned by the decision to send her to a care home in Giza until she reaches 18,” said her uncle. Abdelmassih added that Tawfik Kamel said that he heard that Amira is presently not in a state-owned care home, but in a home affiliated to the Sharia association in Giza, which is in violation of the court decision. He said that he is in the process of appealing the decision to the Attorney General. The decision of the prosecutor in Boulaq El Dakrour was not the first time that prosecution has taken such a measure. On June 12, 2011, 14-year-old Nancy Magdy Fathy, and her 16-year old cousin Christine Ezzat Fathy disappeared from their home in Minya. The family accused two Muslim brothers from a neighboring village of abducting them. Two weeks later they were found in Cairo, but said they converted to Islam, refused to go back to their families and applied for protection from them. Prosecution decided to put them in a state care home and provided protection for them, until completion of the investigations. It was discovered they had lied about converting to Islam, according to Al Azhar. “To this day they are still in the care home,” said activist Waguih Yacoub, “and no progress on their status had been made, except that the two brothers implicated of their disappearance were released.” According to Dr. Oliver, there is an active ring called “Sharia Association of Ain Shams” in the Cairo suburb of Ain Shams, which kidnaps Christian minors. “It depends on the protection and backing of a prosecutor serving there who colludes with this association,” he said. “It is also not uncommon that prosecution detains parents of abducted minors so that they cease to search for their abducted daughters.” Abdelmassih concluded by saying, “Similarly organized Islamization rings, which depend on the protection and collusion of high profile personalities, including prosecutors and policemen, exist in Alexandria. They target Christian minor girls through sexual coercion.” Dan Wooding, 71, is an award-winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times). Egyptian Court Refuses to Return Kidnapped Christian Girl to Family - Christian News Headlines (christianheadlines.com) Egypt's Double Standard in Muslim and Christian Abduction Cases by Mary Abdelmassih August 14, 2011 AINA A 15-year-old Muslim girl, Zeina, was abducted on April 3, 2011 by gunmen in two cars as she was on her way to school in the family car. The driver was beaten and tied up by the kidnappers while the girl was forced into another car. A ransom of 5,000,000 Egyptian pounds was demanded for her return from her wealthy father Effat El-Sadat, a relative of former Egyptian President Anware Sadat. The kidnappers drove Zeina through three Nile Delta provinces before releasing her near a cafeteria on the Cairo to Alexandria desert road, after getting the ransom. The authorities gave a press conference the next day and said that thanks to the efforts of a team of 400 officers from the Interior Ministry who worked on the case, the six culprits had been arrested. It took less than 24 hours for Zeina to return home, the six kidnappers to be arrested and the 5,000000 Egyptian pounds to be returned. The kidnappers were charged with abducting a minor and on April 19 the military court sentenced five of them to life imprisonment and the sixth to 15 years. Two days after this kidnapping, on April 5, Nabila Sedky (15), a Coptic Christian girl from the poor neighborhood of Zawya el Hamra in Cairo, accompanied her Muslim schoolmate Souad Abdelrassoul for a lesson at school, which was never to be. Her family never saw her again. Sedky Sobhy, Nabila's father, said that he filed a report with the police after "the Muslim schoolmate evaded us and on numerous occasions gave us wrong information about the whereabouts of Nabila after they left each other, and sent us on wild goose chases. " Coptic activist and lawyer Karam Gabriel along with other Coptic colleagues volunteered to take up Nabila's case without fees because the family cannot afford a lawyer. At first the police had as their prime suspect a 22-year-old Copt, Pola Samir, who had asked for Nabila's hand in marriage when she becomes of age, as is customary in some parts of Egypt. "But Pola had an alibi," said Gabriel "as he was working 50 kilometers away from Cairo with Nabila's uncle on the day Nabila disappeared." After pressure from the Coptic lawyers, the state prosecutor's office obtained from the three mobile phone networks operating in Egypt the numbers and addresses of people who had spoken to Nabila before her disappearance. "We were able to identify a young Muslim named Mohammad Abdelbari Mady and his accomplice," said Gabriel, "who owns the mobile phone line which Mohammad used to call Nabila with." He was arrested and confessed to abducting her. During investigation it was revealed that Mohammad Abdelbari Mady and his brother-in-law took Nabila by car from Ramsis Street, in downtown Cairo , and hid her for over three months at his sister's home. By the time prosecution got permission to search the sister's home Nabila was moved somewhere else. District public prosecution charged Mady with 'abduction of a female without deception or coercion.' "This is illogical. How could you 'abduct' someone with her free will? " said Karam, adding that during last week's court session, he insisted the charge should be "abducting a 15 year -old minor, without her free will, by deception and coercion." He added that prosecution ignored his friend, who gave him his phone to use, and his sister and her husband, who hid Nabila for over three months in their home, then moved her again before the police searched their home. "These are accomplices and ought to be charged as well, according to Egyptian law." Karam Gabriel and his team had filed a complaint with the Attorney General and are asking to have the charges changed to abduction of a minor by deception and coercion, and to include the other three participants. "I have proof there are corrupt police officers. I gave the investigators tips where to look, information we got through three months of hard work, and instead they were looking at a Copt with an alibi," said Karam, adding that he believes Mady still has Nabila hidden somewhere and he could wait until she reaches 18 years old to convert her to Islam or marry her before, which is also against the law but still takes place. Two weeks ago Nabila Sedky appeared in a YouTube video clip presented by an Islamic website. She was wearing a Hijab and told her parents that she is fine and did not want to leave them but she converted to Islam, the religion of truth, in March and it is not possible to return back to them "because as you know any Christian girl who converts to Islam, you send to the monastery and she is tortured until she dies," she said, echoing the false charge made by Islamists against the Coptic Church. She said if they wanted her to go back to live with them, they would have to convert to Islam. Commenting on the video clip, Nabila's father said that she looks like his daughter, but she does not talk like her. He believes she has been drugged and brainwashed. "I called the security officer and told him about the video clip but he assured me that it was all kids' play, and said your daughter is a minor and I will get her back for you." Ezzat Andrawes, of the Coptic History Encyclopedia, which monitors all offences against Copts, said the police policy is to delay matters for several weeks, to give the Islamization rings enough time to rape the Coptic girl or terrorize her through threats of killing her father or mother or disfiguring her sister's face by acid, or until she is pregnant with a Muslim fetus. "The girl then gives in and sacrifices herself to save her family." In cases where the victim is raped, Egyptian law stipulates the death sentence, "but this applies only to Muslims and not to Coptic females," said Andrawes. Nabila's father said that he still knows nothing about her whereabouts. "All I get are promises from security officials. Why do they apply double standards? el-Sadat's daughter was found within several hours but what about my daughter? Are Coptic girls not Egyptian citizens as well?" Egypt's Double Standard in Muslim and Christian Abduction Cases (aina.org)
Unfortunatly no one cares about the poor Christian Coptics or the Kurds. The world cares about the so called Palestinians.
