The Prosecutor General Talaat Abdullah today ordered the release of the Coptic primary school teacher Dimyana Ebeid Abdel-Nour on bail of EGP20,000—some USD2,500. Abdel-Nour was charged with contempt of Islam and preaching Christianity and was being held in custody for 15 days pending investigations
The Prosecutor General Talaat Abdullah today ordered the release of the Coptic primary school teacher Dimyana Ebeid Abdel-Nour on bail of EGP20,000—some USD2,500. Abdel-Nour was charged with contempt of Islam and preaching Christianity and was being held in custody for 15 days pending investigations.
The lawyer Ayman Iskandar who represents Abdel-Nour, said the prosecutor’s decision to release the defendant is a case of too little too late; she should not have been held in the first place, he said, since there is absolutely no evidence to incriminate her.
Iskandar said the sum of the bail money was far too exaggerated and was disproportionate to the charges against her. He told Watani that Abdel Nour’s family collected the money—which is way beyond the means of the average Egyptian family—from various family members and friends, and paid it in full for their daughter to be released.
According to the lawyer and rights activist Naguib Gabrail, Abdel-Nour’s is the 18th case of ‘contempt of Islam’ against Christian individuals during the last two years. “Such cases open the door wide towards taking religion as a pretext for unjustly and unduly constraining freedom of expression or to settle accounts in personal disputes.”
Watani International
14 May 2013