Christians, Others in Egypt Arrested over critism of Islam by president of France

A young Christian teacher in northeastern Egypt
is facing charges of insulting Islam
after he posted comments on
Facebook, according to local reports.
Youssef Hany of Ismailia, a city on the
Suez Canal 78 miles northeast of Cairo,
posted the comments earlier this
month in reply to a Muslim who had
expressed her opposition to criticisms
of Islam by the president of France and
other French citizens.
Hany was reportedly arrested on Nov.
11, as was a Muslim woman identified
only by her Facebook name, Sandosa,
for their comments on social media.
The next day they were reportedly
charged under Article 98(f) of Egypt’s
penal code, which outlaws insulting a
“heavenly religion,” namely Islam,
Christianity and Judaism.
Hany and the Muslim woman could
face up to five years in prison and a
fine of 500 to 1,000 Egyptian pounds
(about US$30 to US$60) under a law
that calls for a minimum of six months
of prison. They were released on bail
on Nov. 14, one of the attorneys
volunteering to represent them told
news outlet Al-Monitor .
The attorney, Makarios Lahzy, told Al-
Monitor that the charges they are
facing are unconstitutional. Egypt’s
“blasphemy” law against insulting
religion has come under fire for
violating the country’s constitutional
guarantees of freedom of expression
and religious freedom. Used almost
exclusively against criticisms of Islam,
the law is rarely invoked against
frequent, public anti-Christian
comments.
The law has also been criticized for
arbitrary use. Lahzy, director of the
Minority and Religious Groups
department of the Egyptian
Commission for Rights and Freedoms,
said the law “does not clearly and
expressly define contempt of or
defamation [of religion] and leaves the
notion loose and unreliable.”
After Hany’s comments appeared in a
heated exchange on Facebook, other
social media users circulated the
comments, creating a swirl of
opposition leading to a Twitter hashtag
calling for him to be tried and
sentenced with the maximum
punishment as an example to others
who might criticize Islam, according to
online news outlet Al Wafd News.
Advocacy group Copts-United pointed
out a social media post calling for
Hany and others to be killed.
“He must be killed,” reads a screenshot
of the post. “Someone volunteer,
people, we will not continue to debate
with a few absent-minded minorities …
We will squash them …”
While Hany was arrested for allegedly
insulting Islam, those who
subsequently insulted Christianity and
called for Hany to be killed were not
detained, Copts-United noted. The
group reported that writer Ernest
William commented on the arrest of
Hany on his Facebook page, asking if
Egypt’s blasphemy law applied only to
comments critical of Islam.
“Did the authorities not see the
comments transcending the contempt
for Christianity to contempt for
Christians and the outright call to kill
not only Mr. Hany but the Copts as a
minority, as one of them claimed?”
William wrote.
After Hany’s post circulated online, an
attorney filed a complaint against him
and his Facebook page at the district
attorney’s office, which also received
complaints from other lawyers, leading
authorities to investigate and arrest
him, according to online news outlet Al
Masry Alyoum.
Al-Monitor reported last week that
Egyptian authorities recently began
expanding detention or prosecution of
citizens on charges of blasphemy.
Ayman Rida Hanna and Mounir
Masaad Hanna, a Coptic Christian,
were arrested in June 2019 after they
discussed Muslim prayer on a video.
Referred to a criminal trial on Nov. 11,
they were held in pre-trial detention
since their arrest in spite of repeated
calls to release them, their attorney told
Al-Monitor.
On Nov. 13, young Muslim
comic Mohammad Ashraf was
reportedly arrested for “insulting Islam
and threatening Egyptian family
values” during a stand-up comedy
routine.
Al-Monitor reported that rights activists
were working on amendments to
Egypt’s blasphemy law that would stop
the imprisonment of citizens based on
comments or sarcastic videos.
In addition to the blasphemy law,
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Aug.
18, 2018, approved a new law
regulating the internet that granted the
government broad powers to restrict
freedom of expression, violate citizens’
privacy and jail online activists for
peaceful speech, according to Human
Rights Watch.
Supporters of Egypt’s blasphemy law,
mostly Islamists and government
officials, say the law is meant to
dissuade and punish those in Egypt
who use religion to instigate “strife and
division” or spread “disdain and
contempt for any of the revealed
religions or the sects belonging
thereto.”
Rights advocates have said the law
needs to distinguish between honest
critique of religion and speech explicitly
meant to incite violence, but that in any
event judges and police would be
biased toward Muslims and against
Coptic Christians.
Human rights activists in Egypt and
abroad say that the blasphemy statute
violates basic standards of human
rights and is most often used to stifle
free speech or as a weapon by
members of the Sunni Islamic majority
to attack religious minorities such as
Coptic Christians.
Since the Egyptian constitution was
passed in 2014 by referendum, there
have been numerous, high-profile
blasphemy cases filed against Coptic
Christians on charges that were either
fabricated or completely false, human
rights activists said.
Coptic teacher Demyana Abd al-Nour,
27, was sentenced to six months in an
Egyptian prison on June 15, 2014, after
she lost an appeal of an earlier
conviction of violating Article 98(f). Al-
Nour originally had been sentenced to
pay a fine of 100,000 Egyptian pounds
(US$14,270), an exorbitant amount that
her family could not pay. The judge in
the Luxor Court of Appeals, Chancellor
Ahmed Abd-Al Maksoud, replaced the
fine with the prison sentence.
COPTIC CHRISTIAN KIDNAPPED
In North Sinai Province, advocates
have petitioned the minister of interior
to intervene in the kidnapping of Nabil
Habashy Salameh, a 61-year-old Coptic
Christian businessman responsible for
building the only church in Bir al-Abd.
The abduction took place on Nov. 8 at
8 p.m., some 50 meters from Nabil’s
house. Gunmen pushed Salameh into a
car as he was going to a shop and
drove away, firing into the air to scare
away pedestrians.
Copts-United reported the kidnappers
drove across town without being
intercepted in spite of heightened
security as a result of long-time
terrorist acts in the area.
Egypt ranked 16 on Christian support
organization Open Doors’ 2020 World
Watch List of the 50 countries where it
is most difficult to be a Christian.

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