{"id":10079,"date":"2015-07-17T10:05:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T10:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=10079"},"modified":"2015-07-17T10:05:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-17T10:05:57","slug":"for-egypts-christians-full-civil-rights-remain-elusive-2-incidents-insufficient-investigation-into-kidnapping-and-mysterious-death-joop-koopman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2015\/07\/17\/for-egypts-christians-full-civil-rights-remain-elusive-2-incidents-insufficient-investigation-into-kidnapping-and-mysterious-death-joop-koopman\/","title":{"rendered":"For Egypt\u2019s Christians Full Civil Rights Remain Elusive. 2 Incidents : Insufficient Investigation Into Kidnapping and  Mysterious Death -Joop Koopman"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p><em>Egypt,\u00a0July 08, 2015\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This report is contributed by Joop Koopman of Aid to the Church in Need.<\/p>\n<p>Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has made significant gestures that signal a commitment to the interests of the country\u2019s Christian minority. His efforts appear sincere, but at the grassroots level the country\u2019s Copts continue to suffer discrimination, harassment and violence at the hands of Muslims\u2014with local authorities regularly turning a blind eye on abuses.<\/p>\n<p>Two incidents that took place in the last month\u2014reported by MidEast Christian News (MCN)\u2014offer fresh evidence:<\/p>\n<p>In the early morning hours of June 24, 17-year-old Coptic teenager Mariam Youssef was abducted by four young men right in front of her house where she lives with her widowed father, Maher Youssef, in the village of Beni Suef, in Upper Egypt. Soon afterward, the distraught elder Youssef was informed by several Muslim men of the abductors\u2019 identity. One of the men turned out to be a neighbour, the other three having criminal records.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Mr. Youssef could not bring local police to let him file a complaint to formally open an investigation. Authorities instead sought to blame the matter on the girl\u2019s upset state of mind, because she had quarrelled with her father the night before her disappearance. Police did question the families of the suspects, but they denied all knowledge and were not pressed to prevail upon their relatives to release Mariam.<\/p>\n<p>MCN reporter Erin Moussa, who interviewed Mr. Youssef, reported that such intransigence on the part of police is quite common in the case of kidnappings that have the aim of forcing young women to convert to Islam\u2014and that such cases are numerous. One of Mariam\u2019s relatives commented: \u201cOur village has only 10 Coptic families and all of them are simple people. There is no church and Copts don\u2019t stir up any trouble that would prompt someone to kidnap the girl.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, more ominously, there was the mysterious death\u2014sometime during the week of June 22\u2014of Coptic army conscript Bahaa Gamal Mikhail, a 24-year-old from the village of Rizqa, near the city of Assiut. His family\u2014informed by military authorities to collect his body from a Cairo morgue\u2014indirectly learned of the official account that the young man, who was the only Christian in his battalion, had supposedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart.<\/p>\n<p>The family, upon inspecting the body, found traces of two bullets and an injury to his forehead. The morgue handed over the body in what MCN reported was \u201csuspicious haste.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mikhail\u2019s parish priest, Father Youannis Saad rejected rumours\u2014which he claimed had been spread by the battalion\u2014that the conscript was depressed. His mother, too, confirmed that he had been in good spirits; he also was considering joining a monastery. Just before his death, Mikhail played music in front of the battalion commander. Father Saad spoke of his strong suspicion that Mikhail was murdered.<\/p>\n<p>A similar case was reported in August of 2013, involving the alleged suicide of another Coptic recruit, Abu al-Khair Atta. Apparently, shortly before his death, a fellow soldier had invited him to embrace Islam. Military officials refused to perform an autopsy.<\/p>\n<p>Joop Koopman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Egypt,\u00a0July 08, 2015\u00a0 This report is contributed by Joop Koopman of Aid to the Church in Need. Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has made significant gestures that signal a commitment to the interests of the country\u2019s Christian minority. His efforts appear sincere, but at the grassroots level the country\u2019s Copts continue to suffer discrimination, harassment&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>For Egypt\u2019s Christians Full Civil Rights Remain Elusive. 2 Incidents : Insufficient Investigation Into Kidnapping and Mysterious Death -Joop Koopman - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2015\/07\/17\/for-egypts-christians-full-civil-rights-remain-elusive-2-incidents-insufficient-investigation-into-kidnapping-and-mysterious-death-joop-koopman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"For Egypt\u2019s Christians Full Civil Rights Remain Elusive. 2 Incidents : Insufficient Investigation Into Kidnapping and Mysterious Death -Joop Koopman - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Egypt,\u00a0July 08, 2015\u00a0 This report is contributed by Joop Koopman of Aid to the Church in Need. 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