Three Christians were arrested in Alexandria on Monday under charged of “contempt of religion” and “proselytism” while one of them was distributing dates to Muslim passengers before Iftar.
One of the men named Stephen Botros Fayed posted the details on his Facebook account saying that on Monday 7 pm one of his friends phoned him because another friend 16 years old was arrested while distributing dates.
“Someone claimed to be the managing director of the newspaper ‘Midan El Riada’ grabbed our friend, beat him and photocopied his ID, then referred him to Sidi Bishr Police Station where he was transferred to Montazah Police Station,” said Fayed.
He continued, “When we arrived to the police station the police officers arrested me and my friend too with no justification. We stayed until the midnight and our families knew nothing about us; we have been treated very badly and our mobiles, IDs and the dates bag were confiscated.”
Shortly after, police officers filed a complaint against the three men, claiming that they were distributing dates. “We were then transferred to prosecution and charged with contempt of religion and using proselytism to polarize Muslims,” Fayed said.
At the end, the three friends were released and forced to pay LE10,000 bail each. After a short time they were called by the National Security for interrogation.
“I think if someone was caught with hashish or drinking wine, it would have be easier to get out than us,” Fayed said.
“There is nothing in law called ‘proselytism’, so they fabricated charges of insulting religion; however the was a tiny paper in the date’s bag encourage love from Jesus teachings,” Ishak Ibrahim, researcher at Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and a close friend to the three men, told Egypt Independent.
A slip of paper in with the dates that the Christians say is from Jesus’ teachings to encourage love.
Ibrahim emphasized that though they were released, the case is still opened and they can be called to go to prosecution anytime.
“What happened is a terrifying attempt by security to curb minority rights. A tiny paper that says the ‘Lord loves you’ does not mean proselytism, as it’s a vague and general term and has no particular interpretation,” said Ibrahim.
