U.S. Copts Association

Alain Navarro | Cairo, Egypt

To veil or not to veil is no longer the question in Egypt. From abject neighbourhoods to chic suburban enclaves Muslim women are instead mulling whether to opt for a strict coverall, or a hipper headscarf.

After three decades of Islamic revival, bare-headed women have become a slender minority — and many of them are Coptic Christians, who account for only a small slice of the country’s 77-million-strong population.

Whether out of ideological or religious reasons, social or family pressure, about 80% of Egyptians now wear the veil — the “most successful and the most troubling sign of Islamisation”, according to sociologist Mona Abaza.
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Captors demand conversion; teenager says police forced her to deny abduction.

October 9 (Compass Direct News) - An Egyptian Christian teenager escaped her Muslim kidnappers last week hours after they had drugged her on a public bus. They threatened to rape her and convert her to Islam if her family did not leave their Nile Delta city of El-Mahala el-Kobra. Laurence Wagih Emil, 15, escaped the ground-floor room where she was being held in Cairo’s southern Helwan suburb at 10 p.m. last Tuesday (October 3) while her captors were away breaking their Ramadan fast. Her father, Wagih Emil, had received several threatening text messages from his daughter’s mobile phone. “Take the rest of your daughters and leave the city, or you will lose them one by one,” said one. “The girl is not accepting easily, but she will embrace Islam for sure.” Before family members recovered her, State Security Investigation officials interviewing Laurence Emil told her she would never see her parents again unless she reported a false story denying the kidnapping.

CBNNews.com - CAIRO, Egypt - For thousands of years, Egyptians have looked to the Nile River for their sustenance. It has provided them with fish to eat and water to irrigate their crops.

Now, in the 21st century, a growing number of Egyptians are searching for living water and a different type of bread.

Many non-believers are coming to Christ because of dreams and visions and Christian television broadcasts. As their numbers have increased, so has the persecution against them.
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