Thursday, February 5, 2009

Two Egyptians arrested at bookfair for selling Bibles

The Egyptian State Security Investigations arrested yesterday Sunday two Christian men. Mina Adel Shawky, a Pharmaceutical student and Essam Kadis Nassif, at the Cairo International Book Fair. Both were charged with proselytizing.

According to a Press Release received from Dr. Naguib Gabraeel, President of the Egyptian Human Rights Confederation, that he called upon the State Security Investigations to rapidly release the two detainees, as their action would escalate religious tensions.He added that there is no such thing as "crime of proselytizing " in the law, for which a person could be penalised for.He also said that arresting those two men is against the principle of equality, and questioned what would have happened if these two men were Muslims distributing the Koran?!

Especially there are whole wings at the Fair, full of Islamic books and the Koran, which are distributed for free.Dr. Gabraeel assured that should the State Security not release them, he would call for a sit-in, to embarrass the Authorities by not treating its citizens equally.

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