7/30/2025 Egypt (International Christian Concern) — Egyptian authorities charged Saeid Mansour Abdulraziq, a Christian convert from Islam, with terrorism on July 22 after he requested his identification papers be changed from Muslim to Christian.

Abdulraziq was arrested in Cairo on July 15 after he pleaded to change the documents. Additional charges include “creating unrest” and “spreading misinformation.”

A Cairo-based Christian attorney, Saeid Fayaz, told Christian Solidarity International that many individuals who convert to Christianity in Egypt live difficult lives due to their faith.

“Thousands of Christian converts in Egypt have no rights, and they receive little support,” Fayaz said. “They live in isolation and constant fear.”

In 2016, Abdulraziq converted to Christianity and joined the Russian Orthodox Church in Egypt. He was ostracized by his family and faced harassment after publicly proclaiming the gospel.

After moving to Russia in 2018 and criticizing Islam, Abdulraziq was imprisoned for one year before being deported back to Egypt in 2024.

It wasn’t until Abdulraziq applied for a change in his documents reflecting his Christian identity that Egyptian authorities arrested him.

The struggle for religious freedom in Egypt, a Muslim-majority nation, continues to be fraught with trouble. This is due, in part, to anti-blasphemy laws, radical Islamist groups, and discriminatory school curricula, according to International Christian Concern’s (ICC) 2025 Global Persecution Index.

“Christians in Egypt have long experienced resistance from the local Muslim-majority community,” the report stated. “This can take many forms, including resistance to an individual’s religious conversion and widespread protests over improvements to local churches.”

ICC’s report also explained that certain Egyptian schools advance negative and prejudicial outlooks upon religious minorities. Educational institutions have been known to teach “discrimination and hatred against religious minorities, including Christians and Jews.”

In its February 2025 report on Egypt, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom stated that certain Egyptian textbooks “defame Jews as ‘treacherous by nature’ and enemies of Islam; Christians and others who refuse to convert to Islam as ‘infidels’; and Baha’is and Ahmadiyya Muslims as ‘esoteric’ sects of Islam.”

Additionally, “other passages teach that violence is permitted against those who do not conform with a particular interpretation of religion, raising religious freedom concerns.”

To read more news stories, visit the ICC Newsroom. For interviews, please email press@persecution.org. To support ICC’s work around the world, please give to our Where Most Needed Fund.