U.S. Copts Association

By Nader Shukry - Watani Newspaper

The story of the disappearance of Tereza Awad Yanni last month began as a classical case of the disappearance of young Coptic Women. On 26 September the family of Yanni, who is an 18-year-old from Beni-Sweif in Lower Egypt, reported her missing and, as is the usual practice, the police procrastinated endlessly, and later said the girl was nowhere to be found.

Cover-up?
But the non-classical part of the story materialised some two weeks ago. In an absurd twist of fate, the police detained the young woman’s family-her father Awad Yanni, her uncle Eissa Yanni, and two cousins of the girl-on charges that they had abducted their own daughter. One Bassam Mohamed Yasser had filed a complaint to the police reporting that the girl had been with him since her disappearance; he had married her urfi, meaning unofficially, and that she had disappeared from where they had been living two days earlier. He accused her family of having abducted her.
The Yannis were released at dawn the following day after being questioned by the prosecutor. But the question remains: what happened to the girl? Her family is torn with fear that Yasser has in some way seriously harmed her and filed the complaint as a cover-up. The police has not found the girl and, if events take the classic turn, there are very serious doubts they ever will find her.

”He stays with us”
Last September twenty five men—10 Muslims and 15 Christians—were detained by the police in Alexandria in the aftermath of a street fight on the 30th Street in the district of Sidi-Bishr Qibli late on Friday 21 September.
The incident, as described by Watani, was strictly non-sectarian; it was a brawl the two sides of which happened to be one Muslim and the other Christian. It was not then clear why the fight had begun; but there were rumours that it was because a Coptic young man, 21-year-old Sami Samir, was thought to have been having an affair with a Muslim young woman.
Last week all the detainees were released except for Samir. When his father asked the security officials why his son was yet detained, he was merely told: “Your son will remain with us for a while.” The father has presented complaints to the authorities in Cairo, but the fact remains that Samir alone from among all those who took part in the fight is being detained.