Escalating insecurity for Christians in Egypt

Nancy and Christine were kidnapped in 2011.
Pray that increased persecution in Egypt will result in
increased boldness among believers (Acts 4:29-31).
(Photo: FrontPage Magazine) 

By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin

Islamisation is advancing across Egypt post-Mubarak, facilitated by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi ultra-fundamentalist Muslims. As the Islamic order is established, Christians are reduced to second-class citizens without fundamental human rights, their lives dependent on their total submission to the Islamic order.

These crimes are being committed with impunity, in accordance with Shariah. Thus Christians are finding their security is deteriorating dramatically and rapidly.

Escalating violence, theft and extortion

On January 20, a Muslim mob chanting “Allahu Akbar” went on a pogrom, attacking and torching properties belonging to Copts in the village of Rahmaniya-Kebly, Nag Hammadi, in Upper (southern) Egypt's volatile Qena Province.

According to Mary Abdelmassih of the Assyrian International News Agency, security forces were present but reportedly did not intervene and the fire brigade turned up 90 minutes late. Miraculously, nobody was killed or injured.

It is understood the pogrom started with a Muslim suggesting that a Coptic-owned hut be torched to make way for a mosque. This was no joke nor idle threat, with the trend towards escalating incidents of Muslim appropriation of Coptic properties for the benefit of the Muslim community.

Escalating kidnap, rape and forced Islamisation

Hundreds of Christian girls are forcibly Islamised every year in Egypt. As Coptic activist Mark Ebeid explains, the Salafi ultra-fundamentalist Muslims “believe strongly that converting a Christian Infidel is in some ways like earning a ticket to paradise – not to mention the earthly remuneration they get from the Saudis.”

Generally, the Christian girls are kidnapped and raped over many days. During this time they are brainwashed to believe they could never return home because of the shame they would bring on their families. The girls are then married off to Islamists and accepted by the Muslim community. The Christian parents frantically searching for their abducted daughters are obstructed at every turn.

Please pray specifically that:

• the Holy Spirit will draw Egypt's wounded, anxious Christians ever closer to him.
• Egypt's Christians will learn to look to and depend on the LORD; may He answer their cries and may the devil have no victory over them.
• God will reveal himself in Egypt as the One who judges, rules, compensates, loves and saves. (Isaiah 40:10,11 ESV)

For more information on Egypt’s suffering Christians, visit the Egypt Country Report.