Forced Islamization of Christian Conscripts in the Egyptian Army

ICC Note

Christian conscripts have been harassed, discriminated against and even killed for refusing to convert to Islam.

By Mary Abdelmassih

10/12/2009 Egypt (AINA)-Mistreatment of Christian conscripts in the Egyptian army, including beatings, psychological harassment and torture, at the hands of radical Muslim officers to force them to convert to Islam is widespread, but is rarely reported by conscripts for fear of reprisals.

In the latest incident, 22-year-old draftee Mubarak Masood Zakaria, a Coptic Christian, died in mysterious circumstances on August 15, 2009. Three days after his death the police in Mallawi summoned his father, Masood Zakaria, to inform him of his son’s “sudden death” of “natural causes,” and give him the body and burial permission. “We were not allowed to see the body,” said the father, who works as a rope spinner and lives under the poverty line, in the Upper Egyptian village of Deir Abu Hennes , Mallawi, in Al-Minya Governorate.

On their way to the church for the funeral ceremony, the odor from Mubarak’s corpse was so offensive the Zakaria family and some mourners decided to inspect the body before its burial. They discovered that Mubarak’s body was riddled with bullets, his face was bruised and his abdomen was cut open and sewn.

The father believes that there is foul play, because his son was always complaining of ill-treatment by his superiors because of his religion “My son sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and what the persecutor told me is illogical,” he told Ms. Reda

He explained that conscripts who are targeted for enforced Islamization are those who have no school education and come from the villages, mostly from Upper Egypt; their families are poor and easily intimidated by the authorities should their sons be harmed. They have no awareness of how to seek human rights organizations or the means to pursue their grievances further.