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| Africa: North |
| Egyptian Teenagers Fight Against Forced Muslim Identities |
| 2004-11-09 |
| From Compass Direct Two teenage Christian sisters in Egypt have gone to court to contest the forced change of their official religious identity to Islam. A State Council verdict is due by the end of November on the case of Iman and Olfat Malak Ayet, now 17 and 18 years of age. Raised as Christians for their entire lives by their Coptic Orthodox mother, the two girls were infants when their now-deceased father converted to Islam. After leaving his Christian wife, little Olfat and as yet unborn Iman in 1986, Malak Aayad Assad changed his name to Mohammed Abdullah al-Mahdi, married a Muslim wife and fathered three more children. After several years' legal battle, he eventually consented to a formal divorce from his Christian wife. But the father had never taken custody of his two Christian daughters or interfered with their mother for raising them as Christians. "He sometimes visited us on the Christian feast days," Olfat told Compass during a private interview in July, "but he never suggested to us that we should become Muslims." |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |