Coordinator of Masreyeen [Egyptians] Against Religious Discrimination (MARED) movement, Mounir Megahed has called upon Egypt’s House of Representatives to form a fact-finding committee to investigate the crimes of “kidnapping Christian women and girls and forcing them to convert to Islam”. Megahed demanded that this committee be granted authority to force the relevant State apparatuses to provide all available information relevant to any incident of disappearance. He demanded that the fact-finding committee be granted access to official investigation reports, relevant State apparatuses, security officials, members of the clergy, the families of the victims and those of the victims whom security can locate, especially those who are not of age.
Earlier this month Atef Makhalif, deputy of the human rights committee of the House of Representatives declared that representatives of the Interior Ministry had divulged during a meeting that, out of 330 cases of forced disappearance that were reported to the Ministry, investigations revealed that five were in fact at homes but were reported missing, 15 had emigrated illegally, and the remaining had elopedin what is termed ‘romance escapades’. Eight persons reported missing remain unfound and no information is available about them, Makhalif said.
Watani International
18 May 2016