Organized Kidnapping of Coptic Christians Women in Egypt
The disappearance of Coptic Christian women from the streets of Egypt is an ongoing phenomenon that shows no signs of ending. Authorities often tell the families of the missing girls that they have "willingly converted to Islam & married Muslim men," but this is not what's happening. The reality is that Salafist networks across Egypt regularly plot to kidnap Coptic Christian women & subject them to forced "Islamization. Members of these networks regularly meet in Mosques to track down Coptic girls and plot on where and how to kidnap them. They watch their homes, monitor all of their activities, and at times use female Muslim recruits to infiltrate their lives & form false friendships to lure the Coptic girls into a false sense of security. Then, once the timing is right, the Salafists strike.
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| Kidnapped Coptic Christian Girls |
The Salafists take them to any number of their "safehouses" where they keep the girls locked up and often drug them. They use coercion and abuse (both mental & physical) to force the girls to convert to Islam, and once converted, they are forcibly married off to a strict Salafist husband who keep the girls prisoner. If any try to escape and turn back to Christianity, they're killed. The Salafists are often funded by networks across the Middle East and they also infiltrate the police force and either coerce the police into aiding them in the kidnappings, or simply convincing them to look the other way.
What is perhaps most tragic in all of the Islamic world actually tries to paint the abductors off as being the true victims. This was evidenced by the 2010 case of Kamelia Shehata, a Coptic woman that Muslims insisted had willingly accepted Islam only to be kidnapped & held captive by the Coptic church in an effort to get her to recant Islam and return to Christianity. Muslim organizations across Egypt (many of which were funded by Qatar) tried, & succeeded in inciting the Muslim community to launch massive attacks against the Copts. Posting phony pictures of Kamelia in a hijab & sending out fake messages of Kamelia saying "Save me from the Crusaders holding me captive!" The deception worked and Muslims across Egypt rioted, attacking Coptic churches, burning down three of them and destroying many Coptic homes & businesses. It only stopped after Kamelia, who had been in hiding, appeared on television and stated that she was living her her husband & son, and that all the images and rumors about her abduction were false. However, by the time it ended, 15 people were killed, and 232 were injured.
This is a terrible tragedy, and other then sympathetic Christian networks, these girls have nobody to turn to. The UN takes no action to stop it and much of the world chooses to turn a blind eye to this tragic reality.
Sources:
Ibrahim, Raymond. "Targeted for Conversion: How Organized Muslim Networks Prey on Christian Women in Egypt." Coptic Solidarity. August 23, 2023. Accessed from:
Ibrahim, Raymond. "Targeted for Conversion: How Organized Muslim Networks Prey on Christian Women in Egypt." Coptic Solidarity. August 23, 2023. Accessed from:
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