ICC Note:

The hair of a Christian girl in Cairo was cut off by a veiled Muslim woman on the metro before being thrown out of the car for being an “infidel”, Bikya Masr reports. According to Naguib Gabriel, the head of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights, the Muslim woman belongs to the Organization of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a Muslim agency that has appointed itself to ensure that women and girls abide by a strict Islamic dress code in Egypt. The incident was not the first time girls have been targeted in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a schoolteacher was convicted of child abuse for cutting the hair off two girls who were not wearing a traditional higab, or headscarf, in the classroom. The rise of Islamic extremism influenced by radical Salafis—who adhere to the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam found in Saudi Arabia—has increasingly imposed its ideology on Islamic society by harassing and outright attacking Christians and other individuals or institutions that are non-Islamic.

By Joseph Mayton

11/13/2012 Egypt (BikyaMasr)- A Christian woman reported that she had her hair cut off by two veiled women inside the Egypt’s capital city Cairo’s metro and thrown out of the car while being called an “infidel.”

Copts United, which reported the incident on its website, said the unnamed woman also suffered a broken arm from being thrown from the car.

The Coptic Christian advocacy group said this was the third such incident on the metro in the past 10 days and nearly at the same location.

Naguib Gebrael, the head of the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, reportedly called the ministry of interior to “find a way to arrest those veiled women who belong to the Organization of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice,” an underground movement that is not officially sanctioned or supported by the government.

This is not the first such hair-cutting occurrence in the country over the past few weeks.

Earlier this month, an Egyptian court in southern Egypt handed out a 6-month suspended sentence in a child abuse case that had sparked outrage among liberals and supporters of freedom of religion.

The teacher, Eman Abu Bakr, was convicted of child abuse after she cut off the hair of two schoolgirls who did not wear a traditional higab, or headscarf.

The case came to light last month after rights groups and local officials in Qurna spoke out against the teacher’s actions.

Abu Bakar, an ultra-conservative teacher who wears the full-face covering niqab, was initially transferred to another school as punishment.

But the father of one of the girls and a children’s rights group filed a case against the teacher, which led to her conviction.

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Abu Bakar reportedly told local papers at the time that she resorted to cutting the girls’ hair only after warning them repeatedly to cover their heads.

The court also fined the teacher $8.

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