Zurich, 22nd April, 2018
SUBJECT:
Kidnapping of Coptic Christian girls in Egypt and the liability of the official state authorities.
Kidnapping, seduction, temptation, love stories. Different classifications of crimes concerning kidnapping of Coptic Christian girls in Egypt. Many people refuse to admit and continue to deny the crystal clear fact. In actual fact, we are facing a case of burn out of a country and its splitting between an offender and a victim, a Muslim offender and a Christian victim. This constitutes a sorrowful end for families involved. In the meantime, it constitutes a sad result also for the offender and every one participating in it as such offender would be referred to as the rapist.
The Egyptian law has defined the age of maturity as 21 years old. In case a girl disappears and her age is more than 18 but less than 21, the offender will be punished only if he sexually assaults her by force. However, this may be classified as assault of an underage girl with her consent. The judgment in this case would be incarceration for a period ranging from 5 to 18 years. If the girl is less than 18 years old, the offender will be punished by life imprisonment or execution as law stipulates.
However, the situation is actually different on the ground. State institutions welcome the teen-ager victim in order to convert her to Islam. Such state institutions would open all doors for her and ignore all laws and conventions. Al-Azhar would then produce all the Islamization certificates and the victim’s new identity documents. Ministry of Interior would protect the offender. The Islamic Shari’ah associations would welcome the hero (the offender), bless him and grant him a lot of money according to the legal classification of the case.
The strange thing is that the Islamization of teen agers has many different descriptions within the different communities. The Ministry of Interior would consider it a victory for Islam as a religion. Al-Azhar would consider it a victory for sublimity of Islam. For Muslim brothers, it is a victory, as if Islam would not flourish except by groping of teen ager and not through acts that serve human needs.
In my capacity as a close observer who keeps an eye on kidnapping cases, I can safely present the following classifications of such crimes:
First: There is the genuine kidnapping as was the case of Niveen Maher in Alexandria city, who wished to become a nun and was kidnapped on her way to the monastery of Anba Bishoi. She showed up only once in Alexandria Security Office and said to the Coptic Pastor that she was scared and every one scared her of him as he was previously a police officer. She was never seen after such incident and might have been killed or managed to escape outside Egypt.
Large amounts of money have recently been granted by a billionaire who was recently convicted in robbery cases. He used to finance such unethical and inhuman acts.
Second: Seduction of young girls through non-genuine love stories or temptation of girls in order to fall in love and get married to a guy who has a brotherhood backward organization behind him. Such organizations are financed by millions of Dollars in order to break the solidarity of Christian families. This is usually done through temptation and may be sexual rape of Coptic teen ager girls. We are not against love but we stand against the absence of law as long as the victim is a Christian girl.
Third: As for matured and married young ladies, everyone has the right to change his/her religion as he/she wishes in line with constitutional religious freedom. However, freedom of religious belief in Egypt is restricted in one-way direction; that is only to convert to Islam. The other way is not acceptable.
There are seven kidnap cases for teen age girls in one week. Do you know how many colluded Ministries which were involved in such unethical crimes?. Do you know that Al-Azhar, which is trying to demonstrate toleration, is actually and unreservedly disrespectful to the law?. Do you know that the the State’s liability for such crimes extends to cover everyone and causes shame to all parties and that this has been exposed worldwide?.
There are many of the thinkers and authors who have tried to write about these crimes but they were inside Egypt. They expressed their views with a lot of reservation and avoided to expose the genuine criminals. They have also avoided to face Al-Azhar establishment, which sponsors the process of Islamization of teen ager Coptic Christian girls.
I wonder how can Al-Azhar Sheikh hug Pope Tawadros during his meeting with him in order to show tolerance, while in actual fact he blesses kidnapping of Coptic Christian girls?.
We are before a case that will burn the nation and break the national unity. It may even go as far as convert the country to a country from being a sovereign nation into being a jungle.
How long will these crimes continue?. The world will know about them through the Coptic rights institutions worldwide. Does the Egyptian political regime expect Copts to join hands with it, or to expose such disgrace to the whole world?.
Does the Egyptian official government institutions understand that they are actually harming religion and social peace and are in fact burning the country?.
Finally, I hope that the following words of Martin Luther King would wake up the ideologized persons and awaken the non-attentive ones:
“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict”.
……………….
Medhat Kelada
