Decision delayed for Christian boys forced into Islam

[Ioannis]

WorldNetDaily: Decision delayed for boys forced into Islam
Posted: September 6, 2007

Alexandria, Egypt, where two Christian students were ordered to adopt
Islam or forfeit future schooling

A court in Egypt has temporarily adjourned a hearing for Christian
boys who, when ordered to take a school test that would result in
their conversion to Islam wrote, "I am Christian," on the exam
papers.

The boys are being forced to take Islamic education because their
father, who abandoned the family years ago and remarried, has adopted
Islam.

According to a Compass Direct report, an attorney for the two young
Christians forced the adjournment by skipping the court hearing,
because the outcome of another case involving such forced conversion
to Islam could affect the case.

According to spokesman Sam Grace, of Coptic News, Mario Medhat
Ramses, 11, and Andrew Medhat Ramses, 13, could be facing a future
without educational opportunities even though they had been
classified as "brilliant" students at the French Lycee school of
Alexandria.

(Story continues below)

"What brought the case to the public attention is the categorical
refusal of the two kids to pass the Islamic exams and convert to
Islam, stating, 'they will not deny their Christianity and convert to
Islam no matter what it would cost them,'" Grace said.

Grace said Egypt's ministry of education ordered the boys to take the
test that would result in their conversion to Islam because their
father, who left the family about five years ago, had decided to
convert from Christianity to Islam.

The parents, Medhat Ramses and Camellia Medhat, were a Christian
couple when the boys were born, but the father then divorced the
mother, leaving his sons behind, and converted to Islam to marry a
Muslim.

But Islamic religious law, which has been adopted by the civil
government in Egypt, requires that children follow the faith of any
parent who converts to Islam, "since Islam is the superior religion
that abrogated all other religions," Grace said.

And leaving the children "to follow the corrupted religions
(Christianity and Judaism) of the other parent would be condemning
the kids to the doom of hell fire where Christians, Jews and all
other non-Muslims are destined," he said.

The Compass Direct report said the case "highlights inequalities non-
Muslims face in Egypt, where one's religion, printed on all official
documents, regulates family laws. Custody of children is
automatically given to whichever parent is Muslim, according to many
interpretations of (Islamic law), enshrined in the nation's
constitution."

The boys, in order to pass to the next grade, were ordered in May to
take their Islamic religion exam. But they wrote, "I am Christian,"
and left the spaces for answers blank.

Compass reported that Egyptian Education Minister Yusri al-Gamal
announced last week he would automatically pass the boys on to the
next grade, but their mother noted the underlying problem remains.

The report said the boys' future hinges on whether the court applies
civil law, which allows them to remain with their mother, or certain
interpretations of Islamic law, which stipulate that children belong
to whichever parent is Muslim, their lawyer, Naguib Gabriel, said.

He said he skipped the hearing scheduled on Monday, when the court
was expected to rule on the boys' future, causing the court to
adjourn indefinitely. He said he hopes to delay the final hearing
until after November 17, when a ruling is expected in another case,
that of 12 converts to Islam seeking "re-conversion" to Christianity.

The lawyer said that ruling will give him an idea about the
government's position in the boys' case.

"The whole point is whether the court will rule according to Egypt's
civil law – in which case the converts will be free to revert to
their Christianity – or according to sharia, meaning that ridda [the
penalty for apostasy] would be applied," the lawyer said.

According to many mainstream interpretations of Islamic law in Egypt,
the punishment for apostasy is death.

The Middle East Review of International Affairs said the rise of
Islam in Egypt arrived with Anwar Sadat's tenure.

"He then initiated what one could, in hindsight, term 'the Great
Islamic Transformation' of Egypt. The first step was to stipulate in
the Second Article of his new Constitution, promulgated in 1971 (long
before Khomeini embarked on his Islamic revolutionary campaign), that
the Principles of Islamic Shari'a were 'a main source' of
legislation. In May 1981, the 'a' was replaced with 'the,' making
Shari'a the term of reference for the entire constitution, meaning
all other articles were to be interpreted in that light," the
organization said.

"The curricula of public schools, established by the Ministry of
Education, ignore the Coptic era in Egypt's history. Courses
glorifying Islam (the 'Only True Religion') and its history, while
vilifying the crusaders (i.e. Christians) and the Jews, are imposed
on all students," the group said.

"In the case of a father of a Christian family converting to Islam,
his minor children are forced to follow suit: The mother's custody
rights – a well established legal principle – are ignored in this
case, as children, according to typical court rulings, are supposed
to follow the 'better (or 'more noble') of the two religions,'" the
group said.

There also are other indications that Egypt is not particularly
tolerant of non-Muslims. An Egyptian Christian who had fled his home
nation, "most assuredly has a right not to be tortured," a federal
court ruled in allowing him to remain in the United States.

The court pointedly concluded that "diplomatic assurances" of his
religious rights "by a country known to have engaged in torture"
weren't reassuring.

A report from the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights concluded
Coptic Christians in Egypt have been harassed, tortured and killed by
Muslims for about 1,400 years.

"They have been subjected to all kinds of hate crimes including, the
abduction of young Coptic girls, the killing of Coptic women and
children and the destruction of their places of worship," the report
concluded.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an
agency created by Congress, lists Egypt on its watch list of
countries, noting it had "a poor overall human rights record."