8/31/2010 - Cairo, Egypt (AHN) - Egypt's most senior Coptic Christian cleric, Pope Shenouda III, may be summoned to court and forced to release an alleged convert to Islam. A group of Islamist lawyers has appealed to Egypt's administrative court demanding that the Coptic Church release Camillia She...

 8/26/2010 (AINA) -- Egyptians, Muslims and Christians alike, are closely watching the controversy associated with the Ground Zero Mosque project, though for different reasons. The Egyptian media is giving this issue full coverage with articles mostly accusing Americans of Islamophobia, an...

Daily News Egypt, 8/12/2010 CAIRO: In a bid to resolve the ongoing crisis between the diocese of Maghagha city and the Minya governor, Pope Shenouda decided after a meeting with church leaders to respond to the governor’s request to move the prayer tent from the new to the old building. Gover...

 An Interview with Michael Cromartie By Timothy Dalrymple, 8/11/2010, Patheos Michael Cromartie is Vice President of the Ethics and Public Policy Institute, and director of its programs on Evangelicals in Civil Life and Religion and the Media. He also participates in numerous other mini...

In Egypt , the Copts are being denied access to certain high positions, deprived from the freedom to build new churches, and suffering from increasing suffocating fanaticism from all directions. My special interest in the Coptic question, which is known to many people, led me to conduct an in-depth...

News 24 - 7/25/10 Cairo - The brief disappearance of a priest's wife that sparked rumours of abduction and forced conversion to Islam has highlighted deep-rooted tensions between Christians and Muslims in Egypt, where a private dispute can quickly become a matter of national security. When Camilia...

 By: MARK HEMINGWAY, Washington Examiner, July 12, 2010 Does President Obama care about religious freedom? It's disconcerting that this question needs to be asked of a U.S. president, but prominent observers are sounding the alarm. "The Obama administration seems to have decided tha...

 الجيزة، مصر، الخميس 8 يوليو 2010 (Zenit.org). - في الحالات العادية، قد تستغرق المسألة اكثر من 30 سنة للحصول على توقيع الرئيس لبناء كنيسة جديدة في مصر.ولهذا السبب فإن الأقباط سعداء بأن يغتنموا فرصة فريدة تؤهلهم من بناء كنيسة جديدة في وقت قصير جداً. الأسقف أنطونيوس عزيز مينا من الجيزة، شرح لعون...

 GUIZEH, Egypt, JULY 7, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Under normal circumstances, it can take as many as 30 years and a signature from the president to get a new church built in Egypt. That's why Coptic Catholics are happy to be benefiting from a unique opportunity that will bring them a new church in no...

Translated from the original by Michael Fares, Special to Copts United This Tuesday afternoon, Pope Shenouda III met with the Princess of Kuwait Sheikha Fariha Al=Ahmad Al-Sabah for around an hour and a half. Bishop Armia, Bishop Yoannis and Father Bigol, the Priest of Saint Mark Church in Kuwait,...

 مايكل فارس- خاص الأقباط متحدون التقى ظهر اليوم -الثلاثاء- قداسة "البابا شنودة" الثالث بسمو الأميرة الكويتية "الشيخة فريحة الأحمد الصباح" شقيقية أمير الكويت، واستغرق اللقاء حوالي الساعة ونصفالساعة، بحضور "الأنبا أرميا"، و"الأنبا يؤانس"، و"القمص بيجو...

 By Katherine Marshall, Washington Post, 6/22/10 Two hands cradling a tender young plant provided the visual image for an ambitious conference last week in Alexandria, Egypt. The image aptly illustrated the underlying question: have the new beginnings that President Obama promised one year ago...

 By Yasmine Saleh CAIRO (Reuters) 6/13/10 - Egypt will draft a law to govern marriage and divorce for non-Muslims, a state newspaper reported, a move analysts see as an attempt to contain anger after a court overruled the Coptic Orthodox Church last month. Egypt's Coptic church has long c...

 Middle East Online, 6/10/10 CAIRO - Several hundred Copts demonstrated in Cairo on Wednesday to protest a court ruling ordering their church to allow Christians to remarry, contrary to church doctrine. They gathered in front of the capital's St Mark's Cathedral as the church's leader, Pope S...

 LA Times, 6/1/2010 The Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church will not abide to a recent Higher Administrative Court ruling allowing Copts the right to remarry: "We respect the Egyptian judiciary, but no force on earth can make the Church violate teachings of the holy bible in order to execute ...

 (AFP) – May 30, 2010 CAIRO — A court in Egypt has ordered the Coptic church to allow its faithful to remarry, quashing an appeal by the head of the church, local media reported on Sunday. "By law, a Christian can remarry and the constitution guarantees his rights to have...

Whenever an opportunity comes up to shed light on a positive incident, I hasten to seize it to inform the reader. Since our daily lives are more often than not dominated by negative incidents, I fear that I often end up conveying a bleak, despairing picture of matters on the ground. This, I fear, mi...

 جمعية الشباب القبطية الفرنسية تقوم جمعية الشباب القبطية الفرنسية بعقد مؤتمر دولى للشباب القبطى تحت رعاية قداسة البابا شنودة الثالث وبالنيابة عنه نيافة الانبا دميان اسقف المانيا وذلك فى يوم 2ـ3 من شهر يولية 2010 ويهدف المؤتمر إلى تجميع الشباب القبطى من أجل الحفاظ على الهوية القبطية وربطهم ...

By Chris Echegaray, THE TENNESSEAN, 5/25/10 These days, when incense smoke rises at St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church, it carries with it prayers of thanks from Nashville's Egyptian community, who lost furniture and carpets to the flood instead of lives. The Egyptian Christians live quietly, of...

By YOUSSEF IBRAHMIM, New York Sun | May 22, 2010 The leaders of Coptic Christians, whose community is facing growing persecution in Egypt, say they have been unsuccessful in efforts to gain a hearing from the White House or other parts of the Obama administration. Heightened persecution of Egypt...

 (AFP) – May 5, 2010 CAIRO — An Egyptian author whose book enraged the Coptic Church said on Wednesday he was wanted for questioning by the state security prosecution on suspicion of maligning the Christian faith. Public prosecutor "Abdel Magid Mahmud has referred me to t...

BY DAVID BEDEIN, MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT - The Bulletin SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2010 JERUSALEM - The Middle East Newsline reports that the Egyptian Army has come under the steady domination of Islamists. Egyptian sources said Islamists have risen to mid- and high-level ranks in the army and navy. T...

Translated by Mary Samy for CAA from the original article by Sheriff El Morsy and Mohamed El-Deeb from Dakahlia Sheriff, published in CoptReal on 5/13/10 via Youm7: Dr. Mahmoud Hamdy Zaqzouq, Minister of Awqaf (Religious Heritage & Endowments): "I will not allow abuse of the Copts from the...

وزير الأوقاف فى احتفال القديسة ديمانة "زقزوق" يشارك فى احتفالات القديسة "دميانة" بالدقهلية الدقهلية ـ محمد المرسى وشريف الديب قال الدكتور محمود حمدى زقزوق وزير الأوقاف، لن أسمح بالإساءة للأقباط من فوق المنابر، مؤكداً أن الإساءة للأقباط فى مصر خط أحمر، ولابد أن يعمل خطباء...

By Thomas Farr, Washington Post, 5/6/2010 The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (IRF) has come down hard on the Obama administration for its failure to promote international religious liberty. "U.S. foreign policy on religious freedom," said Commission chairman Leonard Le...

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights’ recently-issued study on “Sectarian violence throughout two years” has been the subject of a thorough review which I presented to Watani readers in the last two editorials. I reviewed the various patterns of sectarian violence cited in t...

USA Today, 4/29/10 A bipartisan U.S. commission on religious freedom says President Obama is softening his stand on protecting the right to one's faith at a time when religious persecution is on the rise, according to an annual report to be released today. The 11th annual report by the U.S. Comm...

 International Christian Concern, 4/30/10 Washington DC (April 30, 2010) - International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on April 28, hundreds of Egyptian Christians in Cairo protested against the third postponement of the trial of Mohammed al-Kammuni, considered to be a blatant judic...

LA Times, April 27 2010 Egyptian Education Minister Ahmed Zaki Badr has announced that certain Islamic religious teachings, which in some schools have inspired extremism, will be modified in the 2010-2011 school year. "We have taken this step after we received complaints of deficiencies in re...

BY Yitzchok Adlerstein and Carl Moeller, Washington Times, 4/19/10 While we Americans largely take our freedom to practice religion for granted, a recent report from the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of the world's people - that's about 4.7 billion people - live in countries with high l...

 Translated from original article by Mohamed Abdel-Latif: In an important legal precedent, the Appellate Misdemeanor court of Shubra confirmed, for the second consecutive week, that necessary works on places of worship, albeit churches or mosques, should immediately be handled and do not nee...

 كتب حاتم سالم تعهد الدكتور على الدين هلال، أمين الإعلام بالحزب الوطنى، بتقديم مقترح إلى الدكتور أحمد زكى بدر، وزير التربية والتعليم، يقضى بإجراء بحث على وكلاء الوزارة ومديرى المديريات والإدارات التعليمية بالمحافظات للكشف عن درجة تفكيرهم وثقافتهم ومستوى تعليمهم وتطبيقهم مفهوم "المواطنة&qu...

Translated from the original by Sahar Talaat The State Administrative Judiciary Court, headed by Chancellor Adel Faraghaly, rejected changing the religion of the two children Andrew and Mario to Christianity in administrative decision in lawsuit #54471. The lawsuit was filed by their mother, Kamil...

by Stephanie Winer, Middle East Quarterly Winter 2010, p. 96 Public conversions from Islam to Christianity in Egypt, a country whose population is 10 percent Christian, ignite major controversy. While no Egyptian law forbids conversion to Christianity, Islamic law treats it as apostasy dese...

 كتبت سحر طلعت رفضت محكمة القضاء الإدارى بمجلس الدولة، برئاسة المستشار عادل فرغلى، تغيير ديانة الطفلين أندرو وماريو إلى المسيحية، لانتفاء القرار الإدارى، وذلك فى الدعوى التى أقامتها والدتهما كاميليا لطفى جاب الله برقم 54471، ضد كل من وزير الداخلية، ورئيس مصلحة الأحوال المدنية بصفتيهما، للمطالب...

كتب ـ محمد عبد اللطيف‏:‏ في مبدأ قانوني مهم أكدت محكمة جنح مستأنف شبرا للأسبوع الثاني علي التوالي ان الأعمال الضرورية لدور العبادة سواء كانت مساجد أو كنائس يتعين القيام بها فورا ولاتحتاج إلي تراخيص من الاحياء التابعة لها‏,‏ كونها من الأعمال العاجلة حتي يتمكن المرتادون علي دور العباد...

Friday, March 19th, 2010 04:46 An open letter to the Prime Minister of Egypt, who is acting president asking God to heal him and be returned to us safe. Are you happy with this barbarism that occurred in the application of your decision to expropriate private property and land owned by the Evangeli...

CBN News, Fri April 2 2010 - Video CAIRO, Egypt -- What would you do if your government designated you a Muslim just because your father converted to Islam? That's what happened to two teenage brothers in Egypt. Now they have filed a legal challenge to retain their Christian identity and the landm...

By Kristen Chick, Correspondent / April 2, 2010 - Christian Science Monitor Naga Hamadi, Egypt When Kamal Nashed Deryes Ghobrial celebrates Easter Sunday this weekend, it will be under the shadow of one of the most striking episodes of sectarian violence in Egypt in years. Mr. Ghobrial’s so...

 بدعوة من اللواء على خير الله فضل أمين الحزب الوطنى بمطروح انعقدت ثلاث جلسات صلح فى مطروح، كان آخرها جلسة موسعة عُقدت اليوم اليوم الاربعاء بحضور نيافة الانبا باخوميوس -مطران البحيرة ومطروح وشمال أفريقيا- ومحافظ مطروح والقيادات الأمنية والشعبية والتنفيذية، بهدف الوصول لحالة من التراضى بين طرفى ا...

الشيماء عبد اللطيف وهاني سمير مصر أكد الدكتور «أحمد الطيب» ـ شيخ الأزهر ـ أن بناء الكنائس واجب علي الدولة الإسلامية، وأن الأزهر لا يعارض بناءها لأن الدين الإسلامي شدد علي حفظ حقوق المسيحيين، وقال خلال لقائه «نجيب جبرائيل» ـ رئيس منظمة الاتحاد المصري لحقوق الإنسان ـ إن شيخ...

 By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI (AP) – 3/10/10 CAIRO — Egypt will shoulder the costs of restoring the country's Jewish houses of worship said the culture minister Tuesday, two days after a historic synagogue in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter was rededicated in a private ceremony. Farouk...

Hareetz, 2/5/10 "Egypt resembles an iceberg," the late Coptic-Egyptian writer Louis Awad once wrote. "One-eighth is above sea level. Seven-eighths are submerged in the depths. One-eighth of our lives takes place in the light of the 20th century, seven-eighths in medieval darkness.&qu...

Almasry ALyoum, 2/3/10 Egyptian secular activists staged a sit-in Wednesday in downtown Cairo calling on the state to end discrimination against Egypt's Christian minority and to bring security officials that have failed to address sectarian crimes to justice. The protest was organized by the newl...

2/2/10 - Alarabiya.net - STRASBOURG (Agencies) Europe's top rights court ruled Tuesday that references to faith on Turkey's national identity cards breached freedom of religion laws. In another closely watched case that gauged respect for human rights in European Union candidate Turkey, the Europe...

 By Deacon Keith Fournier 1/27/2010 Catholic Online 'We are imprisoned in our own home because Muslim clerics called for the murder of my father.' CAIRO, EGYPT (Catholic Online) – The history of Christianity in Egypt goes as far back as the visit of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and...

Irish Times, 2/1/10 LETTER FROM CAIRO: Sectarian conflict in Egypt is growing in frequency as Copts and Muslims radicalise, writes ROB CRILLY FROM A distance the domed roofs and towers look like any other mosque in Cairo, a city where the architecture of Islam dominates the low skyline. But up clo...

FOX News, 1/26/2010 - VIDEO Egyptian Maher El-Gowhary and his 15 year old daughter Dina never pray twice at the same church, never stay longer than a month in any one apartment. They are constantly under threat, always on the run because they converted to Christianity in a largely Muslim country. ...

يوسف رامز طالب الأنبا موسى، الأسقف العام للشباب بالكنيسة القبطية، الدولة باتخاذ «حلول‏ ‏جذرية‏ ‏لهذا‏ ‏الاحتقان‏ ‏المرفوض، ‏من خلال تفعيل‏ ‏توصيات‏ ‏لجنة‏ ‏التقصى‏ ‏البرلمانية‏ ‏برئاسة‏ ‏الدكتور‏ ‏ال...

AlMasry Alyoum, 1/20/10 US Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey paid a visit to Coptic Pope Shenouda III Tuesday to congratulate him on the occasion of Coptic Christmas on 7 January, during which she had been out of the country. According to a source at the papal office, Scobey and Shenouda also di...