Dhimmiwatch.org
A press release from the Jubilee
Campaign, with thanks to FreedomNowNews:
March 25th 2004
EGYPTIAN CHURCH LEADER CONDEMNS
FORCED CONVERSIONS OF CHRISTIANS TO ISLAM
Pope Shenouda the Third, Patriarch
of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, has publicly condemned the kidnapping
and forced conversions of Christian women to Islam. In a speech on March
16 he said, "I have received so many letters about what's happening to
the Christian girls who go to supermarket stores to shop. At the store
they tell them that they have won and have to go upstairs to receive their
award or prize. After that we don't know what's happening to these girls
upstairs.
There is a lot of talking going
on about this matter, and I see that what's happening will create a religious
clash in the country. I'm urging the police to take a serious action against
what's happening, because I have a numerous number of letters regarding
this matter. We don't know where they took the girls. They could be anywhere.
This matter shouldn't be taken in
a careless way as if nothing happened. I'm saying this and I know how dangerous
the situation is. We don't want more disasters to happen to us. We've had
enough."
Sine 1993, the Christian human rights
organisation, the Jubilee Campaign, has been campaigning against the forced
conversions of Egyptian Christians, especially women, to Islam, and has
had numerous cases of such incidents brought to its attention.
In 1998, the late Bishop Athanasius
of Beni Souif, gave a public talk in which he described an incident which
took place some years beforehand, when a young Christian woman came to
him for help after she managed to escape from Muslims who had held her
captive with the intention of forcing her to convert to Islam.
She had fled from a house where
different teams of Muslims were working to pressure or force Christians
to convert to Islam. She had been tricked by two Muslim friends into accompanying
them to that house, where she was held captive. Her description of what
happened there indicated that there was a very organised and systematic
approach by these Muslims to waylaying and forcing Egyptian Christians
to convert to Islam.
Jubilee's Researcher and Parliamentary
Officer, Wilfred Wong, says, "The attempts to force Christians to convert
to Islam in Egypt are on the increase and the methods are getting increasingly
varied and well organised.
Some of these forced conversions
are carried out by Muslim individuals, with the help of their friends,
while others are being conducted by well funded groups. Christians of all
denominations are seen as "fair game" for forced conversions, whether they
be Protestants, Coptic Orthodox or Catholic. It is common for money to
be offered to Christians to convert to Islam - no small matter in a country
where poverty is very widespread - but it also common for intimidation
and force, including kidnapping and the threat or use of rape to be adopted
as a method of making Christians convert to Islam. Christian women and
girls are especially vulnerable to these attacks and the Egyptian authorities
do nothing to protect the Christians. The Egyptian police even order the
families of kidnapped Christian women to forget about their daughters and
not to try to get them back.
Pope Shenouda rarely ever makes
public pronouncements regarding the persecution of Christians but for him
to have recently publicly mentioned these kidnappings of Egyptian Christian
women is one disturbing indication that the problem is escalating sharply.
Since the Egyptian authorities do nothing to help, the Muslims involved
in these forced conversions are emboldened to increase the scale of their
operations. Much prayer is needed against this evil phenomenon."
In his speech, Pope Shenouda also
referred to an incident where some young Christian men were travelling
and carrying some Bibles. They were arrested and interrogated by the authorities
simply because they were in possession of a few Bibles.
There are about ten million or more
Christians in Egypt, making them by far the largest Christian community
in the predominantly Islamic Arab world. For many years Jubilee Campaign
has been warning the international community that this also makes Egyptian
Christians a prime target for Muslim fundamentalists, who want to rid the
Arab world of such a large Christian presence by either converting them
to Islam, driving them out of the country or killing them.
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For further information you can
contact Wilfred Wong on +44 (0)20 7219 5129.
Jubilee Campaign is an interdenominational
Christian human rights organisation which has worked with over 150 British
Parliamentarians on human rights issues all over the world.
