Copts welcome Presidential announcement on Eastern Christmas Holiday- (20.12.2002)
Pope Shenouda warns Copts that marriage with Jehovah's Witnesses is ground for excommunication and divorce - (22.07.2002)
Egyptians on trial deny insulting Islam - (30.05.2002)
Egypt jails two Scientologists C (05.03.2002.)
Egypt accused of stamping on religious rights - (05.03.2002)
Court suspension of two persons for religious belief - (01.03.2002)
Coptic church attacked in southern Egypt C (12.02.2002)
Copts welcome Presidential announcement
on Eastern Christmas Holiday
ArabicNews.com (20.12.2002)/ HRWF Int. (23.12.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Egypt's Copts Wednesday welcomed President Hosni Mubarak's decision to make January 7, the Eastern Christmas, an official holiday for all Egyptians
The decision has made all Egyptians jubilant," said Bishop Morgos of Shubra Al-kheima in northern Cairo.
Muslims and Copts always converge on religious occasions without discrimination. They have recently celebrated the Eid al-Fitr (which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan) They will soon celebrate the Christmas, he added.
The National society for National unity support reacted with similar praise. They expressed high appreciation for President Mubarak for his gesture.
Meanwhile, participants at the Cairo-held Islamic - Christian conference sent a cable to President Hosni Mubarak Wednesday to thank him for declaring January 7, the Eastern Christmas, and Official holiday for all Egyptians.
The President's decision is an embodiment of national unity between the Muslims and Christians of Egypt, they said.
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Pope Shenouda warns Copts that marriage with Jehovah's Witnesses is ground for excommunication and divorce
AP (19.07.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (22.07.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church criticized the Jehovah's Witness faith and said a Copt's conversion to the sect was a ground for divorce, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported on Friday.
Pope Shenouda III said conversion to the Jehovah's Witness faith was a ground for divorce within his church. The only other ground for divorce is adultery.
The Coptic church allows people of other Christian denominations to intermarry, but disapproves of their divorce, which still can be achieved if taken to the courts.
Copts marrying Muslims, who make up most of Egypt's 68 million population, are also excommunicated.
Speaking in his weekly lecture, the 78-year old patriarch said Jehovah's Witnesses have been active in Egypt for years and have grown more active recently. The faith is "independent and unrelated to all the monotheistic religions," MENA reported him as saying.
"Jehovah's Witnesses have been rejected by all Christian groups," he added.
Church officials and Shenouda's office staff were unavailable for comment Friday. The church is hosting a regular retreat outside Cairo.
Shenouda has been waging a campaign against dissident groups within the church. On July 4, he excommunicated 13 clerics for contesting his authority. The pope accused the clerics, including Deacon Atef Mikhail and a monk, of making claims they were in direct contact with God.
The Jehovah's Witnesses, who have 6 million practicing members worldwide, is a millennialist sect that began in the United States in the 19th century. The sect mandates doorstep proselytizing and its followers routinely knock on doors and ask to talk about religion. They often offer biblical tracts and say they accept donations but do not ask for them.
Shenouda, speaking on Wednesday, said Orthodox Copts should obey the religious leadership and principles of the 2,000-year-old church.
Copts make up less than 10 percent of the population in Egypt, where Islam is the state religion, but the Coptic community worldwide is estimated at 27 million.
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Egyptians on trial deny insulting Islam
Reuters (29.05.2002)/HRWF International Secretariat (30.05.2002) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - E-mail info@hrwf.net - Twenty-one Egyptians denied charges of offending Islam by setting up a religious group with unconventional Muslim beliefs when their trial began on Wednesday, court sources said.
Seventeen of the accused repeated the Muslim statement of faith -- "There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet" -- before the judge to back their not-guilty pleas. Lawyers for four who have been released on bail delivered their pleas.
The court, which is trying the 17 men and four women under Egypt's emergency laws, which give them no right of appeal, rejected bail requests for the rest of the accused and set the next session date for June 5.
They are charged with "abusing the Islamic religion, propagating extremist ideas with the aim of provoking dissent, and scorning the Islamic religion by advancing ideas and beliefs contrary to fixed religious tenets."
Prosecutors say the group held regular meetings at the home of their leader, Sayed Tolba, a 28-year-old employee of Egypt's Atomic Energy Authority who is accused of claiming to be a modern prophet and to possess miraculous healing abilities.
The alleged worshippers include two students, a government employee, a housewife, a doctor and factory owners in the Cairo working class neighborhood of Shubra al-Kheima, where they were arrested in March.
Mainly Muslim Egypt has tried dozens of people in recent years for holding unorthodox views on Islam, but they have no connection to militant Islamist groups seeking to topple the government of President Hosni Mubarak.
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Egypt jails two Scientologists
By Issandr El Amrani
United Press International (05.03. 2002) /- HRWF International Secretariat (14.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net - Two members of the Church of Scientology are being held by Egyptian authorities under charges of "contempt of religion." They are accused of trying to spread their doctrines "with the aim of sparking riots."
"Contempt of religion" is a charge that has come up increasingly often in Egypt in recent years.
Similar accusations have been used against other non-mainstream religious groups or to punish groups whose activities are not illegal.
The Church of Scientology has denied that it had sent people to establish a branch in Egypt, saying that the two were representatives of an Italian publishing firm that sold the works of Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard.
"We are greatly concerned at their prolonged detention, which appears to be a violation of their right to freedom of expression," said Leisa Goodman, the Church of Scientology's human rights director. Mahmoud Massarwa, 28, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin, and his wife Wafaa Ahmad, 26, were arrested on Dec.24 on suspicions that they were trying to spread Scientology in Egypt and harm Egypt's two main religions, Islam and Christianity.
Proselytizing is illegal in Egypt, where Muslims represent approximately 90 percent of the population and Coptic Christians make up most of the remaining 10 percent. On Feb. 27, a court in the affluent Cairo suburb of Heliopolis extended for 30 days the custody of Massarwa and Ahmad to allow for further police questioning.
According to court sources, they have confessed to investigators that they were sent to spread Scientology's doctrine in Egypt after entering the country on the grounds of establishing an office to promote the publishing firm's interests. In addition, the Middle East News Agency, Egypt's state-owned press agency, reported on Feb. 27 that Ahmad, a Palestinian citizen, had been selected because her nationality "would help win sympathy from the Egyptian people." The couple are accused of "contempt for monotheistic religions by trying to spread a new religious doctrine, Scientology, that damages the principles of Islam and Christianity."
They are also suspected of intending to spread the doctrine "with the aim of spreading riots." The Church of Scientology has denied the charges.
"They were not official representatives of the Church of Scientology," said Goodman. "They were representing the Italian branch of New Era Publications, which publishes the works of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology."
Goodman said Massarwa and Ahmad were in Egypt to promote Hubbard's book "Dianetics," which she said does not promote any religion or discuss the subject of religion. She also stressed that the Egyptian censorship authorities had authorized the book's entry into the country.
In Egypt, any imported book or other cultural product must first be approved by a censorship bureau. Works that attack religion, feature graphic sexuality or criticize President Hosni Mubarak's government are frequently banned from entering the country. "Dianetics" is cited, along with other texts by Hubbard, on the Church of Scientology's Web site as an important spiritual underpinning of the religion. International human rights organizations have criticized Egypt for its treatment of Bahais. Between January and April of last year, 17 alleged members of the Bahai faith from the Upper Egyptian governorate of Sohag were arrested and detained without trial. At least 10 of them remain in prison without being granted a trial under charges of debauchery -- including incest. The Bahai faith, which originated in Iran in the late 19th century, is an offshoot of Islam that is considered heretical to mainstream Islam because it denied that Mohammad is the last prophet sent by God. Bahais often face discrimination in the Islamic world.
In February 2001, a U.N. Special Rapporteur noted that in Egypt, "Bahais are not allowed to meet in groups, especially for religious observances, and their literature is destroyed."
In another case, a verdict is expected this week in one of Egypt's State Security Courts -- a parallel system to the normal judicial courts that answers directly to the executive. Six Egyptian nationals are accused of "exploiting religion for extremist ideas with aim of provoking a conflict or of showing scorn or contempt for one of the divinely revealed religions."
The case is widely believed to involve no more than a Muslim sect with unorthodox fasting and praying practices. It isn't only religious groups that are targeted. "Contempt of religion" was also cited as one of the accusations against 52 allegedly homosexual men who were arrested in May 2001 on a floating discotheque on the Nile, the "Queen Boat." The 52 -- 23 of whom were convicted with sentences ranging from one to five years --were also accused of being members of a satanic cult.
The religious charges allowed prosecutors to jail the defendants, since homosexuality is not illegal in Egypt.
The Scientology case, like others before it, is unlikely to elicit much public sympathy. Most Egyptians are conservative and the press -- both state-owned and independent -- has a tendency to run articles echoing the state's position. If convicted, Massarwa and Ahmad may face up to five years in jail. Their next hearing for a trial date to be set will take place at the end of March.
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Egypt accused of stamping on religious rights
One World (05.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (07.03.2002) - Website: www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Egyptian court Tuesday handed down hefty sentences on members of a group accused of practicing "extremist" religious beliefs following a high-profile trial condemned by human rights campaigners as an attempt to stifle religious freedoms.
Amin Yussif, a 51-year-old civil servant--who was described by prosecutors as the leader of the group charged with "exploiting religion for extremist ideas"--was sentenced to three years in prison, along with one of his associates, Ali Abd al-Wali al-Sis. Yussif's wife, Amal Mahmud, and five others, received one-year suspended jail terms.
On the eve of the verdict, Amnesty International described the prosecution as "yet another example of people being at risk of imprisonment solely for exercising their right to freedom of belief."
Amnesty, which campaigns globally on behalf of prisoners of conscience, had urged the government of President Hosny Mubarak to immediately release the eight detained for nearly six months after they were arrested for holding private religious gatherings and advocating changes in Islam, including rules for prayers and pilgrimage.
The court where the verdict was issued, Cairo's state security court, has been the target of criticism since it was set up under Egypt's emergency laws, in place since the late 1960s.
Campaigners say the court's powers--which deny defendants the right to appeal before a higher tribunal--run counter to standards laid out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Egypt signed in 1967.
The Covenant, adopted by the United Nations in 1966, guarantees that those convicted have the right to a review of their conviction and sentence by a higher authority.
The trial of the eight followed several other similar cases, including those of writer Salah al-Din Muhsin, who was accused of "offending religion" in his publications and sentenced to three years in prison in January, 2001, and Manal Wahid Mana'I, a mother of five who was given a five-year sentence in September, 2000, for leading a Sufi cult, whose members follow a mystical strand of Islamist thought.
Most of the 10 people serving jail sentences at the end of 2001 for their religious beliefs were charged under Egypt's penal code which sets a maximum five-year term for "exploiting religion for extremist ideas with the aim of provoking a conflict or of showing scorn or contempt for one of the divinely revealed religions or harming national unity or social peace."
While Amnesty's North Africa specialist was unavailable for comment after Tuesday's verdict, the organisation said in a statement, "The Egyptian authorities should review or abolish legislation that, in violation of international standards, stipulates prison sentences for acts which constitute nothing more than the exercise of the rights of freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
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Court suspension of two persons for religious belief
Judicial (01.03.2002) / HRWF International Secretariat (04.03.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.netThe court of "Masr al-Jadidat" in Cairo decided on Tuesday continued suspension of two of the Palestinians of 1948 for 30 years at custody under the charges of belonging to "Scientology," according to a judicial source.
The two persons were arrested by the Egyptian authorities by the beginning of January after the permission of the State's higher security court, according to the source.
The judicial source added that the judge decided to "continue imprisonment of Wafaa Hassan Ahmad (26 year old) and her husband of an Israeli nationality Mahmoud Mufeed Masarweh (28 year old) for 30 days for investigations "that are made with them at the knowledge of the State's higher security."
The two are accused of defaming "divine religions" through the attempt of disseminating a new religion named Scientology.
The source continued that the two accused persons "admitted during the investigations that they were assigned by the headquarters of the Scientology in Tel Aviv and Rome to disseminate this new religion in Egypt as a starting point to disseminate it into the neighboring states."
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Coptic church attacked in southern Egypt
Security Forces Appear Four Hours Later
by Barbara G. Baker
COMPASS DIRECT (compassdirect@earthlink.net) (11.02.02) / HRWF (12.02.2002) C Website http://www.hrwf.net C Email info@hrwf.net -Coptic Orthodox Christians who gathered yesterday to celebrate their first Sunday Mass in a small village church were attacked with rocks and firebombs by a Muslim mob near El-Minya, 140 miles south of Cairo.
According to local sources in the village of Bani El-Walmous, the armed, attackers damaged the church's cross and set the pews on fire. Reuters news agency reported the number injured in the clash at 11, including two policemen.
But according to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV station's Arabic news broadcasts, 10 Coptic Christians were wounded and 35 nearby homes were destroyed. The BBC reported only four injuries, three Muslims and a Christian, with five homes set afire. Later reports could confirm only 15 Coptic homes burned, with a number of others looted.
After security police cordoned off Bani El-Walmous village yesterday afternoon, independent observers have been unable to verify either the number of injuries or the extent of destruction. "We are still waiting for the details," editor Youssef Sidhom of the weekly "Watani" newspaper told Compass today, after confirming he had a correspondent at the site.
Egyptian authorities quickly blamed the clash on "provocative elements from both sides, Muslim and Christian" in official statements. Security forces told Reuters that after a Muslim mob pelted the church with rocks, Coptic Christians inside the building had fired shotguns at their attackers.
According to the official explanation released by the Egyptian government,the clash was ignited over the ringing of the church bell during the consecration of the new church. In a statement on state-run television, the governor of El-Minya stated that the ordinary Muslims there were "not used to hearing church bells," and this "frustrated" them.
"The problem is not what the mob did," Sidhom commented, "but as always is the case, what the authorities do -- how they behave, and how they comment on the crisis. This always feeds fundamentalist attitudes."
Sidhom said he had learned that Coptic Orthodox Bishop Aghason and the parish priest of the new church in the suburbs of El-Minya had informed local police and security authorities in advance about the inauguration ceremonies for the new church. "But in spite of that," Sidhom said, "when they started ringing the church bell for the Mass, the church was attacked with stones and small pieces of cloth set afire by the mob."
When the local police force failed to appear, church leaders reportedly telephoned security police authorities in Cairo to request protection for the local parishioners and their guests, caught under siege inside the church.
Although the attack began about 9 a.m., no police officials appeared until 12:38 p.m., when a local witness told Compass a colonel arrived from Maghagha, some 40 miles away. Ordering the mob out of the area, the colonel reportedly housed Bishop Aghason and other clergy in the Agricultural Development Bank for their protection until the situation calmed down.
According to an official government statement, 43 people have been arrested for questioning since the village went under police guard yesterday."Tension in Upper Egypt has been fueled by the rise of Islamic militancy over the last 20 years," yesterday's BBC article noted.
Destructive and deadly clashes have broken out repeatedly in Egypt over the building and repair of churches by the Coptic Christian community, who represent 10 percent or more of Egypt's 70 million people. Since official permits take years or even decades to acquire, church constructions are attacked and demolished with impunity by the general Muslim public on the pretext that they have been built illegally.
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