ICC Note: An Egyptian Christian family has been released from prison after being held for months on charges that they were responsible for helping a Muslim woman convert to Christianity and flee the country. The girl, who has fled to Turkey has denied the claims saying that she was instead fleeing sexual abuse from an uncle. Her family insisted that the Zaky family was responsible and had used “black magic” to convert her. After months in prison the family has finally been freed.
12/08/2013 Egypt (Watani) – A Coptic family that has been held in prison since last April pending investigation on suspicions of assisting a Muslim woman to convert to Christianity and leave the country have been finally set free.
The prosecutor-general yesterday issued the order to release the Copts, but their release was postponed for one day owing to administrative procedures.
The story goes back to last March, when the young Muslim woman Rana al-Shazli, a 21-year-old university student in the town of Wasta in Beni-Sweif, some 100km south of Cairo, went missing. Shazli’s disappearance sparked several waves of attacks by the town Muslims against the town Copts, in collective punishment for allegedly helping her convert to Christianity and flee Egypt.
Shazli contacted her family several times from Turkey, insisting she has not converted, was married to a Muslim and was expecting a baby, and explaining that she had fled her home because of what she said was sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle. She claimed her family knew about her predicament but preferred to keep silent about it, and that her father had attempted to marry her off to a man she did not want.
Her Islamist father and uncle, however, insisted she has been ‘tricked’ by the local priest who they claimed used ‘black magic’ to convert her, and that the Church should return her to her family. They incited the Islamist attacks against the town Copts, saying the Muslims had to rise to the defence of their faith and women against the infidels. The Church, for its part, said it had nothing at all to do with Shazli’s disappearance.
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