Christianity Effectively a Criminal Offense in Egypt

Did you know that in Egypt, people can be sentenced to years in prison for converting to Christianity?

A mother and her seven children have been jailed for 15 years for converting back to Christianity from Islam in Egypt.

It’s not clear to me whether the fact that they were once Muslim is supposed to have made a difference.  (It’s outrageous either way.)

Seven other people, who were involved in the case, were also sentenced to five years in jail.

It wasn’t always this bad.

Samuel Tadros, a research fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, said conversions like Nadia’s have been common in the past, but said Egypt’s new Sharia-based constitution “is a real disaster in terms of religion freedom.”

“The cases will increase in the future,” Tadros said. “It will be much harder for people to return to Christianity.”

. . .

Opponents of the constitution, including Coptic Christians and secular and liberal groups, protested at the time against passage of the document because of the mix of Islamic-based Sharia law and politics. Roughly 10 percent of Egyptians are Coptic Christians.

Not for long, I suppose.

“The U.S. State Department must play more of a role in discouraging this kind of persecution,” Sekulow said. “The U.S. should not be an idle bystander. The U.S. provides more than $1 billion to Egypt each year. The State Department should speak out forcefully against this kind of religious persecution in Egypt.”

Hat tip to Mark Steyn’s biting wit.