Cairo, Egypt, Nov 27, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Human rights groups have voiced concern over the arrest of a Coptic Christian activist in Egypt, on terrorism-related charges. Critics argue the arrest is an attempt to silence those who disagree with the government.
Ramy Kamel, founder of the human rights organization Maspero Youth Union, was arrested on Saturday by seven police officers. He faced charges of joining a terrorist group, publishing false news, and receiving foreign funding, AFP reported.
On Monday, the prosecution issued an order for a 15 day-long provisional detention while the investigation is pending.
Kamel had shared footage on Facebook of alleged sectarian violence in Southern Egypt, depicting Coptic Christians being forced out by local Muslims, suggesting that local authorities had turned a blind eye to the violence. Kamel’s Facebook page was deactivated after his arrest.
Human rights activists in recent years have warned repeatedly that Christians are enduring persecution and violence from Muslim groups, and the government has neglected to act. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s Muslim-majority population.
Mina Thabet, a human rights activist and member of Maspero Youth Union, told the Middle East Eye that Kamel had been threatened two weeks ago by authorities, who demanded the activist stop posting these videos on social media or face jail time.
He said the arrest follows a pattern under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
“This is the typical approach by the Sisi government in branding all its opponents as terrorists,” Thabet told Middle East Eye. “The Sisi government is waging a war against its opposition, rather than a war against terrorism.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom denounced the arrest, calling it a violation of religious liberty and freedom of speech.
“USCIRF is deeply alarmed by arrest of Coptic activist Ramy Kamel & apparent renewed crackdown on activists & journalists,” the organization posted on Twitter.
“#Egypt must release all such detainees & fulfill its claims of reform & steps toward #religiousfreedom.”
According to France 24, well-known Egyptian Coptic lawmaker Emad Gad also condemned the arrest on Facebook, calling it “shocking.”
“Release Ramy Kamel… you have no proof that Ramy broke the law,” he said.
The arrest follows a recent crackdown on journalists and other dissenting voices in Egypt. Earlier this week, Mada Masr, the only major independent media group in the country, said its office was raided by the authorities, who confiscated phones and laptops, and briefly arrested three employees.
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A photo of Deborah Emmanuel’s photo on her Facebook page. Emmanuel, a Christian student in Nigeria, was killed by an Islamic mob on her college campus on May 12, 2022. / CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2022 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
Deborah Emmanuel, the Nigerian Christian student who was murdered by a Muslim mob last month, spent her final hours with a close friend who has shared exclusive details of the brutal killing with CNA.
CNA is using the pseudonym “Mary” for the woman’s protection. A Christian herself, she nearly was killed by the same mob.
Significantly, Mary’s account contradicts the claim of authorities that they attempted to rescue Emmanuel from the mob but were “overwhelmed.”
On the contrary, the police “could have stopped the murder if they had really tried,” Mary told CNA.
Emmanuel’s so-called “blasphemy murder” took place on May 12 on the campus of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Sokoto State, a major city located in the northwest corner of Nigeria. The city is home to the Muslim Sultan who serves as the top religious authority for Nigeria’s 100 million Muslim believers.
Prior to the attack, Emmanuel, a home economics major who attended Evangelical Church Winning All, was bullied by fanatical Muslim students at the teacher’s college for audio statements she made on WhatsApp, a messaging platform. She credited Jesus Christ for her success on a recent exam, and when threatened and told to apologize she refused, invoking the Holy Spirit, saying “Holy Ghost fire! Nothing will happen to me,” according to WhatsApp messages reviewed by CNA.
In the aftermath of these heated exchanges, a Muslim mob attacked Emmanuel on the college’s campus. After an hours’ long siege, the mob beat and stoned her to death, then set her body on fire with burning tires, according to graphic video footage posted online. The rioters also rampaged in a Catholic Church compound in Sokoto, according to reports. The riots spread to other Christian-owned properties over two days.
A relative of Emmanuel’s, who said he was standing approximately 60 feet from the mob, also told CNA he believes the police could have saved her. He, too, asked that his identity be withheld for his safety.
Unarmed campus security personnel made a futile attempt to rescue Emmanuel, according to a campus security report shared with CNA. But Emmanuel’s relative said there were dozens of armed police officers on the scene who didn’t fire their weapons.
The commissioner of police in the state also said officers did not fire their weapons. However, he maintained that only 15 of his officers were at the scene, according to a report in The Epoch Times.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto has strongly condemned the attack and called on Emmanuel’s killers to be brought to justice..
“This matter must be treated as a criminal act,” he said. You can read his full statement here.
A plea for help
On the day of Emmanuel’s death, Mary received a frantic phone call from her around 9 a.m, asking for help. By that time, women who lived in her dormitory had begun slapping Emmanuel, Mary told CNA.
Mary arrived at the campus to see her friend surrounded by a mob and being led by a campus staffer to a gatehouse building for her protection. The Muslim students had bloodied her face and head with blows from rods and were joined by male students who believed their duty was to execute a blasphemer on the spot, Mary said.
“Allahu Akbar!” meaning “God is Great” was bellowed for hours, she said.
Mary initially stayed outside the building and tried to intercede for her friend, but she said it wasn’t long before the mob turned on her, too. Within moments Mary was trying to ward off punches and blows from sticks as she backed away from the gatehouse and toward the gate of the college 40 feet away.
Mary said a college lecturer rescued her and brought her to join Emmanuel inside the gatehouse by 10 a.m.
At 10:25 a.m., the relative said, six officers of the Department of State Security (DSS) — the equivalent to the FBI in the U.S. — arrived, firing their rifles in the air but with no effect. Five minutes later, he said, a group of Sokoto police came on the scene and fired tear gas, temporarily scattering the mob.
The above map is based on eyewitness accounts of the murder of Nigerian Christian student Deborah Emmanuel on her college’s campus on May 12, 2022. Graphic by Alexander Hunter
For about 10 minutes police had an opportunity to disperse the mob and force their way to the gatehouse to extract Mary and Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s relative believes. But that did not happen.
By 11 a.m., the mob had returned to the building, holding cloths against their faces to ward off the tear gas. The mob tried hurling stones at Mary through the windows of the locked gatehouse, but Mary barricaded herself behind a table.
The mob then threw gasoline on the women through the front windows and attempted to burn them alive, Mary said.
“Deborah was soaked with gasoline, but when lighted plastic was pitched in through the windows, I quickly stamped the flames out,” Mary said.
No escape
All of this transpired as police and DSS officers watched from a safe distance, according to Emmanuel’s relative.
The traumatized women said little to each other, but Emmanuel was still hoping to do her examination that day, Mary said. At one point, she recalled, Emmanuel asked, “What time is it? I have an examination at noon.” Mary said she looked at her cell phone and told her it was 1 p.m.
After another excruciating hour of siege, the mob pushed down a single Sokoto policeman guarding the door, broke the padlock on the door, and rushed in to find Mary and Emmanuel hiding behind furniture, Mary and the relative related. Two rioters placed a chain around Mary’s neck and pulled it hard, trying to strangle her, she recounted.
“Let this girl go! She is not an offender,” Mary recalled one of the rioters shouting. But as they released her, a young man in the mob grabbed Emmanuel and took her to the front steps of the gatehouse. There she was bludgeoned with steel pipes and wooden rods and stoned, the relative said.
Two DSS officers attempted to rescue Emmanuel but were hit by stones and pushed aside, the relative said. The police officers remained in position and did not come to her aid, he alleged.
Mary collapsed inside the gatehouse gasping from the strangulation. Approximately 40 minutes later, she said, she was roused by one of the mob to leave the building, which was on fire.
As she walked through the smoke, Mary saw the gatehouse burning and Emmanuel’s lifeless body in flames.
The face of Christian persecution
In the aftermath of Emmanuel’s murder, human rights advocates and others have leveled sharp criticism at Nigeria’s government leaders for not doing enough to stem the rising tide of violence directed at Christians and other non-Muslims.
Relatives of Deborah Emmanuel at her burial in Niger State, Nigeria. Courtesy of the Emmanuel family
Anti-Christian hatred was evident in days of rioting in Sokoto following the arrest of two suspects in Emmanuel’s murder. The rioters reportedly were incensed that there were any arrests at all.
“Deborah Emmanuel, like kidnapping victim Leah Sharibu (who was enslaved by Boko Haram insurgents in 2019), has become the face of Christian persecution in Nigeria,” said Kyle Abts, executive director of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON). “There has not been an official report from the security forces on the lynching of Ms. Emmanuel. Her killing and subsequent riots show clear government complicity and coverup.”
Tina Ramirez, founder of the international nonprofit Hardwired Global, also believes the Nigerian government has been unwilling to take a strong stand against blasphemy killings.
“The recent attacks on students are reminiscent of the attacks at Nigerian colleges two decades ago that were the precursor to the growth of extremist groups across Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt,” Ramirez wrote in a text to CNA.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. / Credit: Jorge Lascar via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Jerusalem, Sep 17, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of the holiest places in the world for Christians and an import… […]
Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana, Oct 5, 2017 / 01:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics in Ghana should openly profess their faith in God if they want to improve their country, said Bishop Emmanuel Kofi Fianu of Ho last week, encouraging the faithful not to be ashamed of their Catholicism but rather boldly to proclaim it everywhere.
“Our world today does not want teachers but models; people who take the lead and invite others to follow them instead of sitting in their comfort zones and pointing out the way to others without they themselves ever taking the way,” said Bishop Fianu, chair for the Ghanaian bishops’ Commission of Laity, Women and Youth, according to CANAA.
“The witness of life and word demands that we march our words with our life so that what we say corresponds to what we do,” Fianu continued.
The bishop’s words came during a Sept. 29-30 conference on “Living Our Vocation as Catholic Faithful” held at the Star of the Sea Cathedral in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana.
The conference also celebrated the legacies of the Diocese of Sekondi-Takoradi’s three deceased bishops: Joseph Amihere Essuah, Charles Kweku Sam, and John Martin Darko.
Fianu told those gathered at the event that the sacraments of baptism and confirmation have endowed them with the responsibility of boldly sharing their faith with others, whether in groups or individually.
He also encouraged the faithful to become involved in ministry and to utilize their talents for the Church. Fianu also prompted local priests to help the laity in their parishes become active members within their communities.
Fianu did note that he was inspired by the growing number of Catholics who showed interest in Bible studies and scriptural reading.
“Today, in Ghana, we see some people who stand at street corners, in buses, lorry parks, and other places to preach to others…They do so because that is how they understand the command of Christ to preach the Gospel to all nations,” Fianu said.
“The Church desperately needs the laity to carry out that role with the authority, creativity, and power that the Holy Spirit has given them in Baptism.”
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