WATANI International
26 June 2011
The Islamic Research Academy (IRA), the official body of Islamic scholars, has declared the conversion of two underage women from the village of Nazlet Ebeid in Minya, Upper Egypt invalid. The 17-year old Christine Ezzat Fathy and her 14-year old cousin Nancy Magdy Fathy, who had gone missing from their home since Sunday 12 June, later declared they converted to Islam.
Their disappearance had prompted Coptic protests in Minya demanding the return of the two young women and accusing three Muslim men of having abducted them. The Coptic protestors in Minya were joined by other families whose daughters had disappeared under various conditions.
Ussama Mansour, a lawyer who took part in the protest, said the two Copts must be returned, especially that they are minors protected by the Child’s Law, which criminalises the capture of a minor, even if she goes of her own free will.
A few days later, a video broadcast on several Internet sites showed the two young women, in the Islamic veil, the hijab, declaring their conversion.
They were later found in Cairo when a policeman spotted two women in niqab, the full face veil, and noticed one of them had a cross tattooed on her wrist. This caused him to suspect there was some secret, and he took them to Qasr al-Nil police station.
Investigations revealed the girls were residing in the Giza district of Ezbet Kheirallah, hosted by a Muslim family there, and that they had converted to Islam.
The prosecution decided to enquire about the validity of the underage women’s conversion from the scholars of the Islamic Research Academy. Once the scholars had announced their verdict, the prosecution decided to hand over the girls to the archbishopric of Minya—possibly because they feared that, if handed to their families, the girls’ safety would be compromised.
The girls themselves were afraid of being handed over to their families and asked to be placed in a social institution instead.
The archbishopric, however, recommended that the girls be given professional counselling to help them deal with the personal ordeal they have been through and to prepare them for the resumption of a normal life and schooling. It insisted its role was that of consultant and care-giver; no more. As such, the official spokesman for the archbishopric Armanious al-Minyawi said, the archbishopric was working to make peace between the girls and their families. Handing them over to a social institution, he explained, is illegal.
For there part, the girls’ families have been attempting to reassure them that they understand the situation as a normal youthful mistake.
On Saturday evening, the prosecution decided to place the girls in a social institution.