Muslim converts face persecution in Egypt
Posted: Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 11:13 (GMT)

Muslims in Egypt who change their faith face persecution by the state and rejection from their families, an investigation by Release International has shown, according to the latest edition of the ministry’s magazine.

A Muslim woman who became a Christian told Release how she was kidnapped by her relatives, who pulled out her fingernails to try to make her renounce her new faith.

Mary, not her real name, works secretly to help women like herself – those from a Muslim background, who have chosen to change their religion. She described how some relatives tortured her to try to get her to return to Islam.

“They tortured me, pulled out my nails and burnt me but God gave me a way out,” she said.

Mary became a Christian at the age of 21, after working for a Christian lawyer. She told Release: “I saw that Jesus was fair with everyone; he was gentle with the needy.”

After changing her faith Mary had to leave her family and resorted to living on the streets. Christians she met were suspicious of her, fearing she may have been a spy. They refused to take her in.

“Some priests even told me to return to Islam and my family,” she said.

Eventually she was helped by an Orthodox priest and met other believers from a Muslim background for the first time.

Mary began to help them. But state security were aware of what she was doing and informed her family that she had become a Christian activist. Her relatives kidnapped her and tortured her for seven days before she was able to escape.

Mary is still followed by state security and has had to change her address five times.

Christians from a Muslim background also face other problems. “State security tell their employers they are converts and they fire them,” said Mary.

“Families also marry off convert girls to Muslims, or lock them away in their houses. They even disfigure the girls’ faces with acid.”

Others told Release that they have been arrested and tortured by state security for changing their faith to Christianity. Another faces a fatwa calling for his death. They are forbidden from changing the religion shown on their identity cards.

Many are under pressure to leave Egypt, yet choose to stay and bring the gospel to their people.

Despite the danger, Mary says she will carry on working to help girls who have become Christians. “Jesus Christ is someone who is worth doing this for. It is our gift of suffering for him.”

Release CEO Andy Dipper adds: “Mary has asked for prayer for protection, wisdom and power, as she cares for young girls who have converted to Christianity.

“Release is helping believers like Mary. We are supporting a safe house for Christian women from a Muslim background, and funding education for children who have lost their parents as a result of persecution. Help us to help our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt.”

Egypt was a major centre for Christian scholarship until taken over by Islam in AD639. Today Egypt has the largest Christian community in the Middle East. Christians, mainly Copts, make up around 10 per cent of the population. Yet Christians are denied political representation and discriminated against in education and employment. Muslims who change their faith are regarded as apostates, who have betrayed not only Islam, but their families and their country.

Through its international network of missions Release supports Christians imprisoned for their faith and their families in 30 nations. It supports church workers, pastors and their families, and provides training, Bibles, Christian literature and broadcasts. Release is a member of the UK organisations Global Connections and the Evangelical Alliance.

The U.S. Department of State, in the International Religious Freedom Report 2009, reveals what human rights organizations already knew: one of the main sources of religious persecution is the failure to ensure justice using laws already in place. In other words, do nothing and let the most violent and lawless rule the land through intimidation. “The status of respect for religious freedom by the Government declined somewhat during the reporting period, based on the failure to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of increased incidents of sectarian violence,” says the report.

Translating that government-speak into real life, what this really means is that haters of Christians in Egypt have little to fear from the government if they burn churches, kidnap and rape Christian girls and women, and spark riots where Christians and their homes and businesses are attacked.

I grew up in the Deep South of the U.S. in the days when American cities suffered numerous race-related violent incidents and riots. These events didn’t just happen. They occurred because the police in these racist-strongholds quietly stood back and let it all happen. They let the mobs rule the land.

Police in Egypt are no different. They just let it all happen. And, sometimes, adding insult to injury, they arrest the victims and torture them in order to appease the mobs, so those same mobs won’t turn their fury on the government.

How many Americans have been to Egypt as tourists? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? I’m sure it’s a very large figure, because Egypt is a strikingly beautiful country, with a people that have an extraordinarily gracious and delightful manner, because they are blessed with age-old customs of hospitality that put many Americans to shame. If the government of Egypt decided to change one thing – applying an even-handed, equal application of the law to all its citizens – truly this country would be a beacon of hope, a light of inspiration for noble ideas that have inspired the human race since the dawn of civilization and the earliest attempts to codify human behavior into laws. Instead, through the default of inaction, they continue to allow a small minority of trouble makers to rule this land.

I found, in growing up in a racist community in the deep South, that it didn’t take very many scary people to frighten a whole lot of people for a long time. Those willing to set fires, break windows, and beat up innocent people on the streets don’t have to number in the tens of thousands to effectively rule a country through fear.

How can we get Egypt to change? We start with our own government in the U.S. We write letters and call our politicians and explain to them that we care about Egypt’s citizens. It’s important to us that they receive an equal application of justice under their country’s legal system.

We then go on to inform people in the U.S. what the real situation is in Egypt. Many Americans tend to adopt, by simple default, a very skewed view that is promoted by the uninformed seeking to sensationalize fears following 9/11. This view leads some Americans to believe that most Muslims are dangerous, and that the Middle Eastern countries are pretty much all Muslim. Well, there are millions of Christians in the Middle East. And, there are millions of peaceful Muslims in the Middle East. There are a lot of Muslims who have been taught that Christians are infidels. Most of these Muslims, though they may certainly practice some levels of discriminatory behavior toward Christians as a result of the way they were trained as children, are peaceful, albeit prejudiced people. They are no different, in their actions, from many U.S. Southerners in the 1950s who treated African Americans with contempt and hatred because they were taught that way as children.

It’s so important that Americans understand this basic fact: Most people just want to live a peaceful life with access to enough resources so they can provide for themselves and their families. A small minority seek to be change agents through using intimidation, and fear tactics. These tactics quickly disappear when the law is evenly applied and corruption in the government is not tolerated.

Prejudice can be addressed, as it was in the United States, by enforcing reasonable laws seeking to guarantee basic human rights. We still have a long ways to go in the U.S., particularly in the way we treat minorities in our justice system. There is a great disparity in how African-Americans and Caucasian Americans are handled by the criminal justice system, and it’s been difficult to change this because it’s just so ingrained in people’s minds. The prejudice is often at a subconscious level, as research has shown. But, I can certainly say there has been a huge difference from the way things were in the 1960s in the Southern U.S., when fear reigned among minority communities.

Egypt is a great country filled with noble, highly intelligent, friendly people. It’s time, as Americans, that we show the world we can love Egypt and Her people, and we can help them conquer the same demons of prejudice and sectarian violence that have plagued our country in the past, by encouraging them to be lawful and just to all their citizens. Foreign aid to Egypt could stress these vital points, and we could encourage the country to accept foreign aid-funded programs that would, through teaching and patience, show the Egyptians a better way toward a more prosperous country.

Jan

To some Westerners, the idea that religious freedom can finally come to Middle-Eastern Islamic countries, where Christians and other religious minorities are persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed, seems like an impossible dream.

Millions in the Middle East do not have the choice to explore, or even ask questions about any religion other than Islam. Thousands of former Muslims are risking their lives just to share their religious beliefs with friends, coworkers and family members in Islamic countries.

But, we also believe that even though it seems impossible, expanding religious freedom in the Middle East is still very much possible.

We are thankful for the many people who have supported organizations that advocate for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities mistreated because of their faith. These humanitarian and charitable organizations have brought together, in partnership, concerned citizens living in freedom with suffering people living in places of the world where they are denied religious freedom.

We join these other organizations in providing practical aid and advocacy for those persecuted for their faith in God. We, too, bring their needs, their stories, their voices, and their inspiration to North Americans.

But, we also have this crazy dream: Religious freedom in the Middle East. When we speak with our Middle Eastern partners, this is what is on their hearts and minds.

When people are allowed the freedom to express their faith and to engage in dialogue within a “marketplace of ideas,” all society benefits from this free exchange.

No one should be under compulsion to believe, or observe a particular religion. Everyone should have the freedom to choose to believe or not to believe a particular faith without suffering persecution, assault, or denial of basic human rights.

If our focus is specific, then our goal can become specific, too. When a goal is specific, then it follows that specific steps can be undertaken to change what appears to be an impossible situation. Even though it may be challenging, increasing the level of religious freedom allowed in these countries is not impossible after all.

In the past month, the world witnessed a large number of Iranians who want more freedom and are willing to risk their lives to achieve it. The same desire lies within the hearts of many other Middle Easterners.

Indigenous attorneys are at the forefront of this push for more religious freedom in Egypt — the most populous Middle-Eastern nation. They are questioning the status quo in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. Recent cases are using the legal system to fight for free expressions of religious identity. Egyptians are appealing to the courts using logical arguments, which are exposing the conflict between Islamic law and basic human rights provisions embedded in Egypt’s laws.

I’ll post more details about some of these cases over the following weeks. Such developments should encourage us to see that there is hope for more peace and more freedom in the Middle East by working through indigenous people who share a dream for more freedom. They deserve our support in this difficult struggle.