A Coptic Christian in Egypt has seen sentenced to six years in prison after being convicted on charges of blasphemy and contempt of religion.
Kerolos Ghattas, 30, was arrested earlier this month after he posted pictures on a Facebook page that some Islamists said defamed the religion. Ghattas’ legal team will appeal the verdict of the court.
Local authorities increased their presence in Ghattas’ home village out of fears of sectarian violence. When he was arrested, Islamists hurled Molotov cocktails into shops that were owned by Christians.
Ghattas was not the only Christian to be sentenced to prison on Tuesday. A Christian journalist was given six years in prison for reporting on sectarian strife and highlighting the abuses of Christians by Egyptian Islamists.
Christians have been the subject of abuse due to their support of new President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and the movement that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood. Christians are hoping to get protection to worship freely under the new government.
A group of Middle Eastern activists is speaking out about girls in Egypt being forced into marriage with Islamic men and ordered to convert from Christianity.
The group is pointing out while the world is enraged over 270 Christian girls kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, over 550 Christian girls in Egypt have been kidnapped or forced into marriages with Islamic men over the last three years.
The Association of Victims of Abduction and Forced Disappearance reported that in addition to the marriages, the girls who are Coptic Christians have crosses tattooed on their body burned off with acid.
“Before the revolution there would be five or six girls disappear each month,” AVAFD founder Ebram Louis told the Christian Post. “Now the average is 15 [each month].”
The AVAFD says that the Islamists in government and on police forces are complicit in the kidnapping, rape and forced conversions of the girls. They cite the case of Nadia Makram, kidnapped at age 14 in 2011. Her parents knew the 48-year-old Muslim man who took their daughter and went to police who said they wouldn’t do anything to rescue the kidnapped girl.
AVAFD says if police do get involved, they meet with the girls when they are surrounded by the Muslims who kidnapped her and tell her what to say to the police.
Egyptian officials confirm a group of Islamic extremists attacked the businesses of Christians today in the town of Luxor.
Many of the shops owned by Coptic Christians were burned to the ground.
Authorities investigating the attack said that Islamists marched into the shops in the village of el-Mahmeed and threw gasoline bombs into shop windows. Police say that they have not made any arrested and currently have no persons of interest because of a lack of witnesses coming forward to identify who threw the bombs.
The Islamists are launching attacks ahead of the blasphemy trial of a young Coptic Christian who Islamists claim posted disparaging remarks about Islam on the internet. The trial had been scheduled to begin today.
The young Christian, Kerolos Ghattas, is facing the death penalty if convicted.
Young Christian women in Egypt are being abducted, tortured, raped and forced to convert to Islam in record numbers.
The report from International Christian Concern says that since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, it has been open season on Christian girls by the Muslim population of the country. At least 500 confirmed cases of kidnapped Christian girls being forced into Islamic marriages have been reported and many other incidents have not been confirmed.
The ICC reports that Christian girls who resist and refuse to convert to Islam are then brutally killed including being thrown off buildings by their captors.
An ICC spokesman told Fox News that the government is doing more than turning a blind eye.
“Not only are they turning a blind eye, they are often compliant,” Issac Six said. “It’s pervasive; police at the local level are not stopping the abductions. There needs to be more pressure from the top. We have seen cases before where we’ve seen victims returned when the police put pressure on the kidnappers. We know it’s possible, unfortunately, the police are often complacent.”
The actions are reportedly being taken by radical Islamists connected to the Muslim Brotherhood who are angry they have been thrown out of power in the country.
An Egyptian court has shocked many in Egypt by passing down a death sentence to over 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Legal experts say the death sentences are likely to be overturned on appeal, but the initial ruling by the Egyptian court shows the government is serious in their crackdown on the Islamic extremist organization.
Part of the reason for the belief the sentences will be overturned is that all death sentences have to be approved by the government’s official interpreter of Islamic law. If they are upheld, they can be appealed to the Court of Cassation, which would likely ask for a new trial.
Defense lawyers pointed out that the judge issued many of the death sentences without the defendants even in the courtroom.
A second group of 700 defendants are due in the courtroom on Tuesday, including Mohammed Badie, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Gaza militants continued firing at Israel on Thursday despite a supposed truce that had been formed.
According to Islamic Jihad’s leader in Gaza, Egypt had helped the militants resume a ceasefire agreement from 2012. Israel did not confirm this.
Eight more rockets were fired into Israel on Thursday. Israel retaliated by striking seven “terror sites” in Gaza.
No Israeli casualties were reported Thursday. Witnesses stated that three Palestinians were wounded, but did not confirm if they were civilians or militants.
The Muslim Brotherhood is now a terrorist organization in another major Middle Eastern country.
The group, already a terrorist organization in Egypt, is now officially a terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia.
The move is seen as a response by the Kingdom to the possibility that Muslim Brotherhood extremists from Syria will attempt to return to Saudi Arabia after the civil war ends.
In addition to the Brotherhood, Saudi officials also listed the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as terror groups. The two groups are affiliated with al-Qaeda and have been proven to conduct terrorist attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The new Saudi declaration would make adopting their ideaology or promoting them in any way within the Kingdom would result in significant prison terms.
Amnesty International opposed the designation, saying that Saudi Arabia was trying to silence dissent, not stop terrorist groups from conducting actions in their nation.
Deposed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi appeared at a trial yesterday defiant and angry at the court.
The court had installed a soundproof cage for Morsi to stay inside during the hearing in response to the first time Morsi appeared in court and disrupted the proceedings by continually yelling at the judge and prosecutors.
The new soundproof cage was so successful at keeping order in the court that Egyptian state television declared it “the hero of today’s trial.”
Morsi was also ordered to wear regular prison apparel instead of the dark suit that he wore in the first trial.
Morsi reportedly sat angrily in his cube until his microphone was turned on and then he did nothing but question the judge.
“I am the president of this republic,” Morsi said, “and I’ve been here since 7 in the morning sitting in this dump.”
Other members of the Brotherhood on trial at the same time were placed in a separate glass cage. Every time their microphones were turned on, all they did was chant anti-military messages.
Ariel Sharon was remembered as a great warrior who was also fiercely devoted to his family.
A state memorial service was held Monday attended by multiple foreign dignitaries. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and others attended the ceremony. The Arab world even had a representative as Egypt sent a diplomat to the ceremony.
Vice President Biden delivered a personal address about his decades-long friendship with Sharon and said his passing felt like a “death in the family.” Biden shared stories about how he learned Sharon earned his nickname “The Bulldozer” after he would bring out maps and repeatedly make the same points to hammer home his passion for his country.
He defended this land like a lion and he taught its children to swing a scythe,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said his eulogy. “He was a military legend in his lifetime and then turned his gaze to the day Israel would dwell in safety, when our children would return to our borders and peace would grace the Promised Land.”
Sharon was buried on his farm in southern Israel.
The U.S. government has announced they are seeking an al-Qaeda terrorist in connection with the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
Muhammed Jamal was arrested last fall in Egypt and imprisoned by the Egyptian government for terrorist activity but has since disappeared. Various intelligence reports say he is still in Egypt while others place him inside Yemen.
Four Americans were killed in the September 11, 2012 attack on the Benghazi embassy.
The release from the government about the hunt for an Al Qaeda terrorist in the attack is seen as a direct rebuke of a New York Times story that said al Qaeda had no connection to the terrorist attack. The newspaper had been receiving criticism from elected officials in both political parties saying that intelligence confirmed the involvement of al Qaeda.