[Report presented to the New York Council of Churches on June 28, 1999]
American Coptic organizations, Freedom House and some Christian groups claim Christian girls are frequently kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam with help of the Egyptian police. The International Coptic Federation even went so far as to place an advertisement in the Washington Times of May 25, 1999 in which they mentioned ten girls by name.
Over the past four years, I have collected information on eighty Christian girls who converted to Islam. Of these, more detailed investigative work was done on forty cases. I have files on seven of the ten girls mentioned in the International Coptic Federation ad. This report provides a overview of the available information on these seven girls and background to the claims made about them. I have found that there is no evidence that any of the seven girls were kidnapped and/or raped and/or forced to convert to Islam as the advertisement asserts.
There are, however, other undisclosed problems at work in each case. Unfortunately these have been hidden under the allegation that physical force was used. However, abduction never played a role in any of these cases. Rather, a combination of factors has led to the girls’ involvement with Muslim boys. Often, it has been found that they were trying to escape the family’s poverty and/or problems. Teenage love has also played a dominant factor in these conversions. It is, of course of great concern, that these conversions have taken place at a very young age. Girls in their mid-teens, especially in a traditional Egyptian society, are very vulnerable and their feelings can be easily influenced. This, of course, requires that they be protected.
Christian families who have lost a loved one through a conversion to Islam, even without physical force to convert, have experienced great pain. Every conversion is a very painful process, which almost always leads to a complete break in relationships between the convert and the family, and community he/she came from. This awful experience is reflected in the frequent emotional stories families relate to outsiders, be they other members of the church, priests, human rights activists and journalists.
The draft-text of this report has been read by Father Dr. Christian van Nispen (Dutch), Professor of Islam and Philosophy at the Catholic Seminary in Cairo; Dr. Mike Shelley (US), coordinator of Graduate Studies at the Coptic Evangelical Seminary in Cairo(both have read it on personal title); Mr. Hafez Abu Seada, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR); Dr. Marlyn Tadrous, Deputy Director of the Legal Research Center for Human Rights in Cairo; who has obtained a scholarship to study at Harvard University, USA; and Dale Gavlak (US), correspondent for Vatican Radio and several US media with over nine years of experience in Egypt. Gavlak is also a board member of the Cairo Foreign Press Association in Cairo, Egypt, and has checked a number of stories of alleged kidnap. I am very grateful for their comments and advice but I remain, of course, responsible for the text and its contents.
Let us examine the stories of seven girls and the incidents that led to their conversion to Islam.
Theresa Shaker:
On March 16, 1997, Theresa Shaker Abdallah was 15 years old (not 13 as the advertisement says). She ran away from her family in Wasta, some 90 km south of Cairo. I was informed about the incident at the time and I have followed the developments concerning the family by keeping contact with the family members and the church in the Upper Egyptian towns of Beni Suef and Wasta.
It’s most likely that Theresa ran away from home because there were many family problems and she befriended a Muslim boy. As a consequence, she tried to convert to Islam. When she discovered this was not possible because of her age, she asked to be placed in a Christian home. During this time, Theresa was away from her home for nine days. Her family and priest complained that the local police failed to send her home immediately because she was a minor. They complained to Pope Shenouda who went to Dr. Zakaria Azmy in the office of President Hosni Mubarak. The presidency ordered the police to bring the girl to a group of nuns in Beni Suef (the Christian home) before she was to return home to her family.
Theresa’s brother Adli, aged 33, returned, upon the request of his younger brothers, from Jordan to Egypt to be responsible for the family. On November 30, 1997, Theresa, then 16 years old, her father (55), mother (50) and brother Adel (15) were found dead. Her sister Nadia (17) survived the carnage and testified against Adli. Adli is on trial and has been sentenced to death. The case is now before the high court.
In the months before the murder, the family was sharply divided. There were fights between Adli and his father. He was angry because his father had not registered the house and some land in Adli’s name as he had explicitly asked because both were purchased with money he had earned in Jordan. Also, people in the area cast dispersion on his mother and sisters because they were frequently seen with other men. This is something intolerable in a conservative society. Theresa maintained contact with her Muslim friend. For these reasons, Adli beat his mother and sisters repeatedly and threaten he was going to kill them. Then one day, he carried out the threat.
After the murder, an autopsy was carried out on Therese. She had not been raped and had remained a virgin until the day of her death.
The Shaker family asked lawyer Ali Abdel Aal el-Assawy to defend Adli. The lawyer asked a fee of 10, 000 EgP [around US$ 3000] which brother Ezzat found too high. So when human rights lawyer Maurice Sadek offered his services for free, the choice was made for Sadek as the defense lawyer. It is unclear whether Adli approved of this choice.
Sadek claims Adli is not guilty and Islamic extremists, who cooperated with the police of Wasta, killed his family. He also alleges that prosecutors in Wasta and Beni Suef provided support. For Sadek, this case is an example of Christian persecution. This story has been adopted by Freedom House and has become one of the best-known stories among Christian organizations in the US. Freedom House made a video film and report including information on the subject without ever having been to Wasta. Its story is based on an interview with Maurice Sadek and Ezzat Shaker (Adli’s brother) in Sadek’s office. The two merely repeated Sadek’s arguments in the belief that this would help Adli.
The claim that Islamic extremists murdered the four members of the Shaker family is strange because, except for Ezzat, none of the people interviewed in Wasta had even heard of that claim. None believed that claim was true.
Arguments against Sadek’s defense: Sadek dismisses Nadia’s testimony against her brother and says she was put under pressure by the police or security to make that statement. Sadek provides no evidence at all she was put under pressure. Instead, there is a strong indication that the opposite took place. Nadia was hit by a bullet in the chest and was brought in a state of shock to the hospital. When asked IN the hospital who did it, she immediately answered Adli. A hospital is not a place to put people under pressure!! Nadia repeated her testimony many times, including in court and to people from the church. Her brother, Eid, went to see her a few months ago to ask her not to testify against Adli because this would lead to his death. But she refused to change her testimony. What else can this mean except that she is very convinced that Adli is responsible.
Brother Halim (27) supported Nadia’s witness against Adli in a police report (in Arabic this is called a ’mahdar’) but later refused to repeat this in court without making the claim that his previous testimony was incorrect. However, there are many people who witnessed the internal problems that went on within the family.
The conclusion is that Adli probably primarily acted out of the Upper Egyptian concern for family honor. Church leaders have said that there were very exceptional circumstances happening. Lawyer Ali Abdel Aal el-Assawi believes that focusing on these exceptional circumstances could save Adli’s life. But Sadek has, instead, chosen to go for confrontation thus making it highly risky that Adli’s death penalty will be confirmed. It is certain that Theresa was not kidnapped, that no extremists or police were involved in killing the family and thus Sadek’s so-called defense may backfire in court. The tragic thing is that Adli probably doesn’t know what Sadek is doing.
Olfat Rozaik
Olfat was born on April 24, 1980 and left her parents in March 1997. At the age of 16 she fell in love with a young Muslim named Atef who, a priest says, initially did not tell her he was Muslim. Once her feelings for him were aroused, there was emotionally no way back. She converted to Islam and got married. I met her parents and, later, with the priest in Atef’s village. She deliberately made a choice to go along with Atef against the explicit wish of her parents. One could speak about initial deception because the young man probably gave her the impression he was Christian. But when she discovered he was a Muslim, she made the choice to remain with him.
Saboura Khella
Maurice Sadek claims Saboura Khella (born in 1980) was "kidnapped" on February 13, 1995. The, then, 15-year-old went that day to her literacy class in Dairut in Upper Egypt and afterwards to the police to request she convert to Islam. Saboura’s male relatives claimed she was kidnapped. This allegation was never backed up by further evidence.
Salwa Alfi
In May 1995, Maurice Sadek introduced Mr. Onsi Alfi Rafla (born 1937) to me and other journalists who claimed his daughter Salwa (born August 1,1978) had been kidnapped. Since then, I have kept contact with Mr. Onsi. Salwa was engaged on September 25, 1994 to a Christian named Medhat and was supposed to marry him in June 1995. On Friday, April 28, 1995, Salwa went to church and did not return home.
When Salwa was 17 she went to the local police station in Giza and said she wanted to marry her Muslim neighbor, Mahmoud. Salwa got to know Mahmoud through his sister because the two girls were close friends and studied together. Salwa said her father refused to allow her to marry Mahmoud. When he heard about her friendship with Mahmoud, he arranged an engagement with a Christian named Medhat.
Salwa first stated in a police report (mahdar) at the police station she wanted to become Muslim in order to marry Mahmoud. A few hours later Salwa withdrew her statement about becoming a Muslim because she said, "I love my family and I can’t live without them." Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed el-Wakiel asked if she still wanted to marry Mahmoud. Salwa replied, "Yes." He asked, "Do you still wish to convert to Islam?" She said, "No, I don’t." These statements are according to the police report. She asked the police to have her father sign a document promising that he would treat her well and not harm her if she returned home. After this, the officer asked her father, Onsi, if he was willing to sign such a document. Onsi promised this and signed that he was going to receive his daughter back.
Later that day, Salwa withdrew her statement. In a new statement, she said she was convinced about becoming a Muslim and that she had already proclaimed her belief in Islam. The officer then asked why she made the statement in which she had changed her mind about converting to Islam. According to the report, Salwa replied, "I said that only because at that moment I felt pity for my father, but I still want to convert to Islam and I’m saying this with all my own free will."
Onsi and Sadek claim Salwa renounced her statement that she did not want to convert to Islam because she under severe pressure.
After the conversion procedures were over, Salwa married Mahmud before the civil authorities on June 5, 1995 in Fayoum. On the official wedding certificate, she uses her new Muslim name "Salwa Ahmed Abdel Salam Mohammed." In order to get married, she used a falsified birth certificate stating she is over 18 years of age.
Onsi didn’t want to give his daughter up and went to court. He was disappointed with Sadek because he had done nothing with his case in court so he went to another lawyer.
This counselor, who, unlike Maurice Sadek, refused to speak to the press because he believed this would be counter productive, thought Onsi would have a good chance to get his daughter back through a court case. The girl was minor and there had been an obvious falsification of her birth certificate. He was also willing take the case for free for the Onsi family. He was able to obtain a copy of the marriage certificate which was made on basis of a false birth certificate. With that copy in hand, the counselor filed on March 12, 1996, his first official complaint at the police station in Fayoum. The court declared Salwa’s marriage as invalid because it was based on a falsified birth certificate. Mahmud’s sister, the man who married them, and others, 13 persons in total, were arrested. They, however, paid bail and were freed. Mahmud was, at that time, in the army. Later they found him and he was notified to appear in court.
The prosecutor-general of Fayoum met in June 1996 with Salwa. He told the counselor that she was not willing to return to her family. But Onsi did not believe this. He believed that she was put under pressure and received threats from Mahmud’s family to say this. While there are frequently complaints about the police dealing with issues, prosecutor-generals are not known to exert pressure on people interviewed in their offices.
It’s likely that Salwa was torn between Mahmoud and her family. She ultimately decided for Mahmoud. Her choice has caused her parents great pain. Mahmoud or his family had been involved in falsifying a birth certificate in order for the two to get married.
Irini Mikhail
Irene Sadeq Mikhail was the youngest in a family of seven brothers and sisters. She was engaged and the wedding date was set for October 1996. In May 1996, the sixteen-year-old did not return home from school but had gone to the police to report to them she wanted to convert to Islam and marry her Muslim friend, Ahmed.
Irene’s family immediately claimed she was kidnapped. The incident caused a stir in the office of the Legal Research Center for Human Rights in Cairo because she was a distant relative of Dr. Marlyn Tadrous’ secretary. When the story unfolded it became clear to Dr. Tadrous and her organization that Irene was not kidnapped.
Maurice Sadek presented this case to me in May 1996. He immediately accepted as true the family’s claim that Irene was kidnapped. I interviewed Irene’s brother Henny together with a journalist from the BBC. I later met with other members of the family and again later saw Henny in court after his brothers had tried to force Irene to come back. I spoke with the Coptic bishop involved in the matter who consulted Dr. Tantawi, presently the Grand Sheikh of Al Azhar University. I went to see Ahmed at his home.
The family asked a bishop, who asked to remain anonymous, to intervene. He approached Dr. Tantawi to seek permission that he might be allow to sit alone with Irene and speak with her as long as she wanted. I met the bishop a few days later. He told me he was convinced that Irene had fallen in love with Ahmed without the family knowing about it. Others, who met with family members, suspect that Irene, the youngest in a family of seven, might have had problems with her family and probably wanted to escape.
Irene’s brother gave me Ahmed’s address. I went to see him without making an appointment in order to surprise him and hopefully find out the truth. Ahmed is a nice, good-looking, young man who received me very well. He explained how he got to know Irene and how he fell in love with her. Irene did not stay alone with Ahmed, but shared a room with other girls in Ahmed’s parents’ house. When I, however, asked to speak with Irene, he told me that he had to get police permission. The police had told him not speak with journalists.
Irene might have been in love, but she was still a minor. Her case was the first one of its kind in which the judge was asked to apply the new children’s law of 1996. The new law aims to protect children in different areas of life. For centuries, it has been a custom in Egypt to marry young, and children are often easily influenced to enter into a marriage they do not want. This law seeks to prevent precisely such occurrences.
The new law should have given hope to the Sadeq family. A hearing was planned for July 9, 1996. Maurice Sadek, however, asked for a postponement and the judge gave Maurice Sadek and the family a new date for August 24. But three brothers, a cousin and Irene’s former fiancé did not have the patience to wait until the next hearing. They decided to kidnap Irene on July 15 when she was on her way to school with Ahmed and a policeman, who was assigned to protect her. Irene was forced in her brothers’ car. They took the road to Bilqas. On the road, they went to a petrol station. Irene screamed very loudly and told everyone that she was being kidnapped. The owner of the petrol station called the police who came quickly to the spot and arrested the family. The brothers were brought to court and sentenced to jail.
Certainly if Irene had been "kidnapped" by Mahmoud, why did she scream in the petrol station she was abducted by her brothers? This is the clearest evidence that her decision to run away from home was done according to her own free will.
Sanaa Lahzi
Journalist Youssef Sidhom wrote in the opening article of the Egyptian weekly, "Watany," of March 10,1996, that "a terrible crime had occurred in Minya." He described what happened. "On the 6th of January (Coptic Orthodox Christmas Eve), Makram Lahzy Yo’anas, a father in agony, sent a letter to us. He pleaded, ’Please help me! My daughter Sanaa, 16-years-old, was violently kidnapped in the streets of Minya. We were informed by an officer in Minya that the girl is in Samalut police station. We rushed there. The police officer who met us said, "Your daughter declared her belief in Islam and whoever comes against her from your family, will be arrested and accused of possessing weapons and will be sent to prison.’
Mr. Makram continued, "When we objected saying that the girl is still a minor and she is not allowed to make such a decision, the officer ordered his policemen to beat us and then they sent us out of the police station." Later he said he was told by one of the leaders in Central Police Security Office to "forget about the girl."
The story in el-Watany does not prove Sanaa was kidnapped. The story was not investigated and was based on the emotional claims of her father.
Isis Nawar
Isis Rezq Nawar ( born November 1, 1981)ran away from on March 17, 1996. The fifteen-year-old married Mohammed Helmy in Wasta on March 18,1996. Three days later, the Wasta police station called Orthodox priest, Father Youssef, to meet the girl after she was brought from Maidum. Isis’ father wrote a letter to Maurice Sadek saying ’When my daughter saw Father Youssef, she cried and said to him, "I want to go back home with you."
He continued his letter by writing, ’When the chief of the investigation department heard what my daughter had said, he told Father Youssef to "Wait for an hour until we finish the procedures and then you can take the girl with you. "He claimed the police had detained the girl for an hour and threatened that she would be harmed if she left with the priest. Later the police brought her before the priest and asked her once again whether she like to go with him or not. The girl said, "No." The father said this was because the chief of the investigation department, the police commissioner and the second man in charge had threatened her.
Isis’ father further wrote that "On March 21, about 200 people from Saft, el-Daibia and Maidum gathered in front of the police station. In spite of ordering the crowd to disperse, the police let them stay in order to threaten us."
He continued his statement. "After that the state security police did something so horrible and provocative which, without God’s help, it would have turned the whole situation into a massacre. The state security police, the general investigation department of the Central Police Security Office, and those who are responsible for this matter in this office arrested the girl’s uncle, Mr. Abad Nawar Rezq, the young man, Mr. Mohammed Helmy, and my daughter, Isis. They put the three of them in one cell to spent the whole night together until the next morning."
"Was this something wise and reasonable to put them together in one cell ? The young man did something so provocative in order to mock her uncle. He hugged the girl and performed sexual foreplay acts in front of her uncle. If my brother had not acted as wisely and as reasonably as he did, there would had been a massacre in the cell. I do not know what they wanted to achieve by putting the two parties together in one cell. Did they want the two parties to kill each other ? How could such a decision come from those who are responsible for security?"
A few months after the incident Father Yousef spoke with me and another journalist. He refused to use the word ’kidnap’. He said no force was involved in drawing Isis to Islam. Conversions to Islam, he said, are rather a matter of using the carrot and the stick. First young girls are lured with promises of a better life and once they have become Muslim, they are told they should not return to Christianity because that would be considered apostasy or ’ridda’. This, according to the popular interpretation of Islamic law, is punishable by death.
Claims of the Advertisement:
Unlike the advertisement states, none of the above Christian girls were kidnapped in the sense that they were physically spirited away and forced against their will to convert to Islam. Nor were they sexually violated or raped.
Egyptian Human Rights Organizations:
For the preparation of this report, I spoke with Mr. Hafez Abu Seada, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR). Mr. Abu Seada, a lawyer by profession, checked out 13 cases of alleged kidnap in 1994. None of them proved to be related to the use of physical pressure. Also in later years, the EOHR checked out claims made to it such as the above-mentioned case of Salwa Onsi. The organization found there were no cases presented to it in which girls were forced against their will to leave their families and convert to Islam. Mr. Hafez Abu Seada further pointed out that the EOHR exchanges information on a regular basis with other Egyptian human rights organizations. None of the groups has found any evidence in claims presented to them.
Mr. Abu Seada stressed that only Maurice Sadek’s "Center for Human Rights and National Unity" has come out with these stories. He said, however, that "Sadek is not a human rights activist. I see him as a man who advocates for the Christian community." Mr. Abu Seada continued, "Real human rights activism looks at the violations but not whether the people who were violated are Muslim or Christian. Of course, it is a problem for families if their girls run away at a very young age. Not only young Christian girls but also young Muslim girls run away which is an equally great problem for their families. That is not a human rights problem but a societal problem."
Background:
I have discussed the issue of conversions to Islam with tens of priests, bishops and church workers of all denominations, especially those who were nominated by the Orthodox church to speak with young Christians, mainly women but sometimes men, in police offices. Their conclusions matched my findings by checking out individual cases.
The claim of kidnap is made to save the honor of the family:
The claims that the girls were kidnapped were always made by male relatives; fathers, brothers and uncles. Their stories were always emotional and mixed selected facts with interpretations which could not be backed up by facts. Where I was able to meet a priest and more distant relatives and friends, there was no claim that force was used to make the girl convert.
The late Revd. Dr. Samuel Habib, president of the Synod of the Coptic Evangelical churches said in an interview in July 1996 that he looked into many similar cases. "The family of the girl usually says that their daughter was kidnapped. They wouldn’t claim that if a son disappeared. In my understanding until now, there has not been one single case of kidnapping, however, there are many cases of a young woman or a man who wants to marry a person from the other religion."
A Christian family cannot admit their daughter left them out of her own free will. Admitting this would be a tremendous loss of honor and thus, in order to preserve something of their hurt honor, they claim their daughter was kidnapped. In that way, they can blame the other, not the mistakes and problems in their own family.
Christian girls who run away rarely do this without a reason:
In almost all cases the girls have run away from their Christian family. They do not run away for just any reason. In the eighty cases reported to me the following factors played a role.
- Most girls who ran away were not very religious.
Their Christian faith was not very deeply rooted. This situation combined with one or more of the following factors make conversion to Islam very easy.
- Poverty
The most striking element that stands out in many stories is poverty. A church worker in an industrial area of greater Cairo, who had seen tens of Christians to Islam and who had spoken about it with other church workers, estimated that 60% of those who converted to Islam were suffering from poverty and they knew nothing of their own Christian faith. The remaining 40% also did not know much about their faith but were suffering from family problems. This church worker says that in none of the conversion cases he knows of physical force was used, while all families claimed it happened.
- Family problems
Family problems in Christian families are a major reason for young children trying to escape from their families. Young girls in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, are especially, supposed to remain with their families until they marry. If problems arise in their family, conversion is often seen as the only way to escape. Family problems and poverty are often related.
- Youth and love
Priests estimate that between 60 % to 65 % of those who convert to Islam are aged 17 or 18. They also estimate that 80% to 90% of the converts are younger than 25-years-old. Eighty percent of those converts are girls. Many of them fall in love with Muslims which is not approved of by their families, so they run away from their families and convert to Islam in order to escape the control of their family.
If a family discovers or suspects a girl has befriended a Muslim man (the link is often made through the Muslim man’s sister) the family will, in most cases, respond harshly and try to find quickly a Christian partner for their daughter. But that response usually speeds up her decision to run away.
An estimated 20% convert to Islam after having had a sexual relationship with a Muslim. Sexual relationships lead to Muslims putting pressure on the Christian to convert.
Many young Muslim boys are interested in arousing the feelings of young girls, Muslim or Christian (some call this seduction), because getting married in a regular way is very difficult. In Egyptian culture, a young man must have an apartment and regular job before the parents of a young woman would consider him as a suitable candidate for marriage. The alternative to a regular marriage is a so-called "orfi" marriage which can almost to be compared to the Western ’living together’. This is known to friends but not approved by most families, whether Muslim and Christian.
If a Christian girl responds to the flirtations of a young Muslim and a relationship develops and is discovered by her family, this situation will lead to a break in the relationship between her and her parents. This means that the requirements to provide a flat and a regular income are gone. That is, for such a boy, a pleasant side effect.
- Work environment
The same sources estimate that about 10 % of the conversion cases to Islam in Alexandria are because of pressure at work or in the army. Some claim that others converted because of financial difficulties and housing problems. It is reported that some landlords have threatened to throw Christians out of their apartments or houses who were not able to pay the rent unless they convert to Islam. I have not been able to investigate whether or not these reports are correct.
- Divorce
Priests in Alexandria say that about 10 % of those who convert to Islam do so because they want to get a divorce. A church worker in the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo estimates this percentage to be 17%. The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt refuses to accept divorce except if martial infidelity is proved. Many of those Christians who want to get a divorce cannot prove their spouse’s infidelity to the church. They convert to Islam in order to get an immediate divorce after finishing the conversion procedures.
According to the same church worker in the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, about 3 % convert because they are seeking material gains such as a promotion, travel abroad, or obtaining a better standard of living.
Priests believe that none of those who convert to Islam do so because they are convinced of Islam or believe in it. Rather they all convert because of the above-mentioned circumstances. This was confirmed by an employee at Dar al-Iftah at Al Azhar (one of the offices where conversions are made and registered). "Most converts to Islam are young and know nothing about Islam. They convert just because they will gain certain things when they become Muslims." This employee at Al Azhar showed a letter from the Saudi Arabian Embassy inquiring about a 24-year- old Christian young man, who after his conversion to Islam, traveled to Saudi Arabia asking the Saudis for money because he forsook Christianity and became a Muslim.
The above-mentioned percentages are indications of the importance of the factors involved. None of the people interviewed had precise statistics. Estimates furthermore vary from area to area and from the personal experience of people who reported about converts. Most frequently a conversion results not from only one single factor but from a host of factors almost always involving a lack of knowledge of the Christian faith.
- Pressure
Pressure can happen. It is, however, not physical pressure as the word ’kidnap’ would imply. But if pressure is present, it often takes the form of social pressure. Islam is, like Christianity, a missionary religion and adherents of both Islam and Christianity like to see others join their faith. The borderline from ’just asking someone to convert’ to ’social pressure’ is very thin. Pressure could come in the form of repeatedly asking someone to convert in a situation where that person is in a position of dependency on the ones making the request (school, work, army, etc.). That kind of social pressure depends on individuals and is not institutionalized.
There are persistent rumors among Christians that there are organized Muslim efforts to convert Christian girls to Islam. None of these claims could be proved but that does not mean it does not exist in local communities. In few cases (including Irene and Olfat) claims were made that the Muslim husband belonged to the Gama’at al-Islamiya (an extremist group)which, after checking, proved not to be true. This means we should be careful with such allegations. On the other hand is it not impossible that incentives to convert may be offered by individual Muslims.
Certain is that the term ’kidnap’ does not apply in the above mentioned cases. Dr. van Nispen called it an ’inflation of terminology’. The use of such a term is inflammatory.
- Most converts are Orthodox
Girls converting to Islam can be found in all denominations: Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic but by far most converts to Islam in Egypt are Orthodox. That is no wonder since approximately 90% of all Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church has a larger share among the poor then the Protestant and Catholic churches.
The formal procedure for conversion:
Girls would normally first go to a police station to make a police report (mahdar) in which they announce their wish to convert to Islam. If they do this, they will not return to their Christian family fearing their violent response for having committed such an act. There is enough evidence to justify the fear of a girl of her family once she has taken that step. The police would have to call in a priest who sits with the girl in the presence of police officers who, officially, should not interfere in the discussion, but in practice, often do interfere. In that meeting, the priest makes the effort to convince the girl not to convert. Sometimes it is decided to call for a second meeting. If the girl persists in her decision, a report is made and she goes to a registration office to change the religion on her identity card. Once that has happened, there is formally no way back. Sometimes the girls adopt Muslim names, but this is not obligatory.
The Ministry of Interior has listed the places where Muslim sheikhs should sit with the girls to recite the Islamic creed (shehada) and renounce their former belief. The sheikh who has listened to a girl saying the "shehada" gives her a document stating that she has done so. This document is essential for the completion of the procedure at the registration office. One of the places where the "shehada" can be said is the Dar al-Iftah at Al Azhar in Cairo. Such places list the names of all those who recited the "shehada" in a book which is later collected by the Ministry of Interior.
The girl is free to say the "shehada" before or after having made the police report (mahdar) made at the police station. Most common is, however, that she goes to the police first and then is told to obtain a document stating she has said the "shehada." Priests are usually called in after the girl has already said the "shehada." Technically it is then still possible to return to Christianity, but in practice this rarely happens.
The procedure is weak because it happens that there a couple of days between the time when girl makes the police report (mahdar) at a police station and receives a visit from a priest. This period allows for suspicion that pressure is used. Priests are known to have objected to police officers sitting in during their visits with the girl. Officially, a sheikh has to make sure he is convinced a girl wants to convert to Islam out of conviction before he accepts to hear her recite the "shehada" but in practice this is very hard to realize. A girl, who has taken this step, would usually answer the question if she is convinced of converting to Islam with a simple ’yes’ after which rarely more questions are asked.
Numbers:
The number of Christians converting to Islam is very large. Except for figures within the Ministry of Interior (which are not available to the public) no statistics exist. Church leaders, however, estimate the number of converts to be thousands a year. The highest estimates mentioned were around 15,000 to 20,000 per year.
American Copts:
Unlike the advertisement of the International Coptic Federation claims, there is no evidence that Coptic girls are kidnapped, raped and forced against their will to convert to Islam. Does this mean these Copts are deliberately falsifying stories? Certainly not! Copts overseas, as Rafique Iscander, President of the American Coptic Union (I haven’t been able to consult other overseas Copts before this press conference)has specified, frequently receive faxes from Egypt alleging kidnap. These faxes come from the Egyptian Center for Human Rights and National Unity, individual families in Egypt whose son or daughter had converted to Islam and their own connections in Egypt. Copts overseas are naturally concerned about what happens to the Copts in Egypt. Claims that girls are kidnapped are believed without further verification. It is extremely difficult to verify stories when you are not in Egypt. Verification is not just a phone call with a lawyer in Egypt or with a father or brother of a convert. More is needed as is specified below.
Copts overseas also want to do something to help their brothers and sisters in Egypt. Since they are not in Egypt, the only way they see they can help is by exerting political pressure on the American Congress so that it will pressure the Egyptian government. But pressuring the government to take action for something, which doesn’t exist [that is systematic kidnapping, not conversions which do not happen], certainly is not going to help. Isn’t it better to focus on the real issues? Make sure the full background of an issue is known. Below I have listed the problems with recommendations on how to deal with them.
One of the problems is a strong distrust among Copts in the USA vis-à-vis the Egyptian government. Rafique Iscander, for example, doesn’t trust the policy and the documents produced by the Egyptian government. Thus, for him the police reports and court documents in the Adli Shaker case have no value. He also does not trust the statements of Coptic clergy because he sees them as captive to the Egyptian government. This makes it extremely difficult to convince him (and others) of what happened. Iscander also doesn’t care about the details, because he says "how can I distinguish what is true from what is not true?"
Yet, he believes that a neutral and, thus, credible fact-finding committee, with the American Coptic Union and perhaps others as an observer [for transparency], could shed light on the real problems experienced by families confronted with conversion of their daughter or son. This could help to find solutions to these problems.
The discussion with Iscander has raised the important issue of credibility. In my opinion he doesn’t do justice to all those clergy who are really making an effort to help their community. In my view the most credible information is: 1) if the source has no personal emotional involvement in the subject he/she speaks about.
2) if the source gives information which is consistent with the general climate and fits within what is known from Egyptian culture.
3) from a person who has shown personal integrity. If someone’s testimony has proved to be once unreliable one should be careful a second time.
Eyewitnesses are most important, their stories are generally more emotional but then still criteria 2 and 3 apply.
4) official documents should not be automatically dismissed but for each document one needs to ask the question when the document was produced and in which circumstances.
Problems and Recommendations:
For Human Rights Workers:
All the above-mentioned claims of kidnap originated from the office of Maurice Sadek. He took the stories virtually almost always from male relatives and recounted these without doing any further investigation. Sadek is not alone in dealing with these claims in this way. This is, however, is wrong and claims should always be further examined. Such investigation would include asking questions from female relatives of the converted girl, priests, female friends, etc.
These stories are presented to a Western public, which does not know the cultural context in which these stories took place. People in the West hear only one side of the story from male relatives without taking into account other factors like family honor and reasons why the girls ran away from home. It should also be borne in mind that girls in the Middle East are more sheltered and less mature than their Western counterparts who are exposed to much more of the world around them. They are generally very naïve.
The claim of ’kidnap’ for the above-mentioned cases is inaccurate. Instead, a full discussion is needed of all the factors that played a part in the girl’s conversion to Islam.
Claiming girls are kidnapped is not only wrong, but it is also harmful because it takes the focus away from the real issues involved and which need to be addressed. (See below under church and government.) These are the issues which the church and government should deal with instead of the unnecessary polarization which does not provide the means to finding a suitable solution for the young girls concerned.
Because so little investigation is done in these cases a group of Coptic women have come up with the following suggestion to check cases of alleged kidnap:
1) First, ask who reported the story to you. If the source is only a male relative of the girl, be careful! Because males are often motivated by the issue of ’honor,’ their story alone cannot be the basis of a human rights case.
2) Ask questions about the social level of the family. Is there poverty? How has the family been coping with this poverty?
3) Ask questions about the girl’s relations with the church. Was she concerned about frequently attending church? Did she have many friends in church or did she also have many friends outside the church? What was the nature of her friendships outside the church?
4) Question the mother but ask to see her alone without father or brothers. The ideal situation is that a female sees her and asks her about her relationship with her daughter, her place in the family, her relations with other members in the family. If there are sisters and they had a good relationship with the girl they also could be seen and asked the same questions.
5) Ask the priest, preferably her confession father, about her relation with the church and her spiritual life.
6) Ask neighbors and friends who know the family and girl well.
7) Through the above mentioned persons one can find out who the best and most intimate friends of the girl were. In case of rape, a Christian girl would speak first to her female Christian friends - not her parents - out of fear her story may not be accepted. Meet this most intimate friend and hear her story.
8) In case a Christian girl thinks about conversion to Islam, she will first speak about this with an intimate female Muslim friend. Her friends and definitely her female Christian friends will be able to say who this best female Muslim friend was. They will be able to say how closely she was involved with that girl. Try to meet that intimate Muslim friend and hear her story.
9) If a lawyer is involved, ask to see the official reports made by the police (mahdars). In these reports one sees how a family has presented a case to the police and how the girl and others have responded.
10) Try to meet with the girl and her Muslim family. This is the most difficult part because of great distrust among Muslims for Westerners and Christians, especially for these cases. A Christian woman meeting with the girl alone and hearing her story will obtain the best and most conclusive evidence. In the prevailing climate of distrust, this is, however, very hard to realize. In most cases it is also not needed because the information obtained through steps 1 to 9 already give enough information to draw accurate conclusions. Only when the first nine steps lead to important questions that could only be answered by the girl herself, can one press for meeting the girl alone.
The steps 1 to 9 are time-consuming, but, in general, easy to realize. With the information obtained, one has already a very good picture about the background of a specific conversion and whether illegal methods have been used or legal procedures have been broken. It is advisable to carry out such a research with help of devoted female Christians who are, preferably, from the same church the girl originally came from.
For the church in Egypt:
Often the church’s response is weak. Very little has been done to help girls if they try to leave a difficult family situation. A priest might try to speak with the family and attempt a reconciliation. This is good but rarely is there more done if the problem persists. There may be some situations in which it would be better to take the girl out of the family and place her in a special home for a certain period of time.
Priests say they are mostly informed about a conversion once a girl has made up already her mind. In that stage, it is very difficult to speak to her and change her opinion again.
The church is weak in reaching out to Christians living in isolated areas who, as a consequence, are not very well educated in their own faith. Is certainly is no that far-fetched for someone to turn to Islam if they are already feeble in his/her own faith and on top of that is confronted with poverty, family problems, divorce, love, etc. This is a problem for the church to solve and for which Muslims should not be blamed.
For the Egyptian media:
The weekly magazine, Rose el-Yousef of June 12-18, 1999, claims that conversions of all the girls mentioned in the advertisement were due to love affairs. The magazine admits that the love affairs of the above mentioned Theresa and Isis were in conjunction with problems within their Christian homes. Other news reports have simply denied any problems. This is the general argument heard in Egypt, but this is too simplistic. (What some might call "love," others would call "playing with feelings" or "seduction" because of the young age of girls involved). It is, therefore, painful for Christians in Egypt who feel that the young age of many converts and the conversion procedures used are often overlooked as problems.
For the Egyptian government:
It is not clear what the legal minimum age for conversion is. Sheikhs at Al Azhar said they would accept anyone who is 16 years or older. Maurice Sadek and others, however, claim the legal age for conversion is 21. This would need to be clarified.
What do local authorities do when a girl below the age of 16 approaches them for conversion? This is where the Christian response (parents and church) is sharpest. The above-mentioned Theresa, Saboura and Isis were under 16 when they asked the local police for help to convert to Islam. In all three cases the girls, almost certainly, made the decision out of their own free will, but what should the local authorities do if they are confronted with a girl who does not want to stay with her family and is under 16? On the one hand, the integrity of the family should be respected, while at the other, a girl, who wants to escape from her family for valid reasons, needs to be protected. Could the church play a role in offering a safe shelter for girls under 16 who want to leave their families? The current situation is that the police presently take the side of the girls and probably in most cases do not return girls who are under 16 to their families. This virtually always leads to sharp protests from the church. In one case (Theresa Shaker) even the Presidency had to interfere in order to have a girl returned to her community.
Most reported conversions concern the age group between 16 and 21. Olfat, Salwa, Irini and Sanaa were 16 and 17-years-old when they converted. Parents, supported by several lawyers, claim they should have full authority over their daughters until the age of 21.
According to Islamic law, a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Christian woman. Thus, in none of the above cases was conversion was needed. In also none of the above-mentioned cases did the girls show a particularly great interest in Islam as a religion before deciding to run off. Then, why did they convert?
In a society where conversions in either direction to Islam or Christianity are considered taboo to the opposite faith, it is not strange that a conversion to Islam is a sure way to break a girl’s ties to her Christian family. Thus a conversion will almost certainly prevent her from running back to her family if the relationship does not work out well. Conversion, for that reason, makes her like a prisoner in the hands of her husband because she has, unlike other young women, no family to turn to if the relationship sours. Conversion is also seen as a means for the girl to escape the control of her parents. These reasons should not be the purpose of a conversion.
There are rarely problems around conversion of Christians over the age of 21. This shows that the problems of conversion are age-related. The younger a person is, the more sensitive a conversion becomes.
In many cases, the police have not dealt with the matters in a sensitive way. However, cases involving very young people require, if anything, extra sensitivity. There is much evidence that the police have treated the girls’ parents very roughly. Even if the daughter has made a voluntary decision to run away from home and for that reason wants to turn to Islam, still the minimum legal age for conversion needs to be respected and the parents have the right to be absolutely certain that her decision to covert was voluntary.
Sensitivity is also needed in the procedure converts to Islam have to pass before such a conversion is valid. Such sensitivity is not only often lacking, but the procedure itself is highly criticized by most priests in Egypt. Christian parents who have seen their daughter convert to Islam almost always suspect that the police have not played a neutral role and have encouraged the girls’ decision to convert and not to return to the family. It would, therefore, be recommended that the Egyptian authorities again review the procedures and make sure that nowhere in the process could suspicion arise that social pressure had been exerted on a convert. Parents have the right to be absolutely sure that their daughter or son has converted out of her/his own free will.
This report is only a first effort to discuss the many different elements that play a role in conversion to Islam. Of course more study need to be done and efforts need to be made to offer Christian girls in difficult circumstances the help they need in order to avoid their conversion as a means of escape. Also efforts should be made to make sure that no girl converts before it is absolutely certain that her wish to convert is indeed her own will.
Drs. Cornelis Hulsman,
Cairo, June 28, 1999
