Egyptian Police Detain Family of Abducted Christian Girl

ICC Note

“In many cases of forced Islamization Coptic minor girls, the State Security conspires to facilitate the criminal act, misleads the bereaved families of the victims and turns them from victim to accused,”

By Mary Abdelmassih

08/24/2009 Egypt (AINA)-On August 21, 2009 the family of 14-year-old missing Coptic girl Nagafa Mahrous went to Al-Marg police station to identify their daughter but was detained by the police “on orders from the State Security.”

Nagafa, whose family reported her missing on on 6/14/2009, arrived at the police station dressed in a Burqa and told her parents she has converted to Islam and is now married. She was accompanied by 33-year old plumber Ramadan Ibrahim, whom she said was her husband. She had gone to the police to establish the fact that she was married and filed a complaint against her family demanding an official pledge from them for non-harassment.

“The abducted girl’s mother, her 13-year-old brother Hany and her grandfather were detained, which is a flagrant violation of the Mahrous family’s civil rights,” Ghobrial said. All concerned would be presented to the Public Prosecution on the following day.

“In many cases of forced Islamization Coptic minor girls, the State Security conspires to facilitate the criminal act, misleads the bereaved families of the victims and turns them from victim to accused,” he said.

Ghobrial believes there is a strong Islamic cell operating in the Al-Marg district of Cairo north, which is working on the Islamization of Christian minors and falsifying their papers.

“My collegues and I have been working for quite some time on the Coptic issue and there are many cases of girls being abducted and who go missing in Al Marg,” he said. “We found out that the State Security participates in the abduction of Coptic minor girls. They are then kept away until they reach the age of 18 years, after which the police closes the case file relevant to that girl and she becomes a de facto Muslim.”