Open Doors asks us to pray.
Reports of kidnappings and the forced conversion of Christian girls to Islam are common among Egypt's Coptic community. Only three months ago, Theresa Ghattas Kamal, missing since 6 January and feared kidnapped by a Muslim man, was found living with a Muslim family. Wearing the full veil, she told her brother that she had 'found the right path' - Islam. Please pray for these girls and remember the ones who go unnoticed.
Name: Ingy Nagy Edwar
Age:
19
Disappeared: 27 Sept 2003
Ingy (top,
right) disappeared the day after her 19th birthday. She was
reportedly being held against her will by a Muslim couple, near
Cairo, but police showed her family an alleged signed declaration of
conversion to Islam.
At a hearing on the girl's case, Ingy
appeared in court dressed in an Islamic veil.
Her family believe
she was being given drugs affecting her moods, and her brother said
she had spoken of suicidal thoughts.
Name: Marianna Rezk Shafik Attallah
Age: 20
Disappeared: 30 May
2005
Marianna (bottom, left) left work to pick up a patient's
blood sample but has not been seen since.
The owner of the
business next door told her fiancé that a Muslim employee of his had
kidnapped the young woman.
Rumours spread that she had converted
to Islam, but her fiancé dismissed the claims, saying it was her close
relationship with God that brought him to a deeper understanding of
his own Christian faith.
Name: Heba Nabil Narouz Ghali
Age: 21
Disappeared: 28
September 2005
Heba (bottom, right) was last seen leaving work
at a hypermarket in a suburb of Cairo. Staff said she had left as
usual on the bus but later claimed she had resigned.
Five days
later the family received a letter stating that Heba had eloped with
a Muslim man but when they contacted the man, he denied any knowledge
of her whereabouts.
The next day, a police source told Nabil
Ghali that his daughter had converted to Islam.
On 13 November,
he acquired a copy of Heba's conversion certificate, dated 28
September.
Name: Theresa Ghattas Kamal
Age: 19
Disappeared:3
January 2006
Three weeks after she went missing, Theresa (top,
left) called her family, saying she was imprisoned in a Cairo
apartment facing pressure to convert to Islam.
Theresa's brother
eventually found her living with a Muslim family. He was allowed to
visit on 23 March when he sat with her for 90 minutes.
She spoke
only once to say, "I have converted to Islam. I have found the right
path."
Theresa's family insist that she was kidnapped, but some
Christian girls romanced by young Muslim men voluntarily leave their
families and convert to Islam to escape poverty and unhappy family
situations. 
Open Doors supports the Persecuted Church in 45 countries around the world by: training church leaders and Christian workers; supplying Bibles and other Christian resources to Christians who either can't get a Bible or have difficulty; providing practical livelihood training and opportunities; visiting, comforting and encouraging those who are suffering; and raising awareness of the difficulties facing persecuted Christians and mobilising prayer support throughout the western world.
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"There is NO compulsion in religion." This is and has always been the position of Islam on conversion. Coptic Christian women consistently complain of suffocating restrictions on divorce levied by the church should they wish to end unhappy marriages. It is also not unusual that people of different faiths become enamored and wish to marry, in spite of family objections. These women choose conversion as a logical way out. Allegations of kidnappings and forced conversions that you make have NEVER been substantiated and are nothing more than BITTER GRAPES.
Coptic women are kidnapped by muslims and FORCED to convert. Copts ARE a persecuted minority. Kimberly, this is not new from muslims - there are several active cases where Muslim men have coerced European women into Muslim countries and the women have then dissappeared. Do your research carefully you will find that lying is encouraged by the Quran to protect the Islamic faith. Jihad as explained by Maseer is NOT the interpretation that is in mosques. Islam is not a religion of peace as is evidenced by the violent acts carried out on a daily basis in its name. Also the word and concept of holy are not foreign to Islam.
Research the history of the cartoons!! - a Danish Iman puts an open advertisement in a newspaper which offers a reward for every "Kaffir" (unbeliever - that's us by the way) murdered. The cartoons were written as a response to this criminal act by the Iman, and the same Iman was the person who took the cartoons to the Arab press eight (8) months after they had been publised!!!