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| Africa North |
| Libya Frees Arrested Egyptian Christians |
| 2013-03-13 |
[An Nahar] Fifty-five Egyptian Christians nabbedYouse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! last month in Libya for allegedly seeking to convert Mohammedans have been freed, while four others are still behind bars, the Egyptian foreign ministry said on Tuesday. "Our embassy has been assured of the release of 55 people and is actively working to seek the release of four others who are still in detention," deputy front man Nazih al-Naggary told Agence La Belle France Presse. His comments come a day after a human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. lawyer said that one of those locked away Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! had been tortured to death in jug, prompting demonstrators to attack the Libyan embassy in Cairo. Ezzat Hakim Attallah "died after being tortured with other detainees" in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, said Naguib Guebrayel, a Coptic Christian lawyer who heads the Egyptian Union for Human Rights watchdog. On March 1, a Libyan security official said some 50 Egyptian Copts were arrested on illegal immigration charges, although they were suspected of proselytizing in Libya's second city, Benghazi. He said they were found in possession of a quantity of Bibles, texts encouraging conversion to Christianity and images of Christ and the late Pope Shenuda of Egypt's Coptic Christians, none of which were for "personal use." But the main charge was illegal entry into Libya, he said. Four foreigners -- an Egyptian, a South African, a South Korean and a Swede with a U.S. passport -- were also arrested in Benghazi in mid-February on suspicion of trying to convert Mohammedans to Christianity, something Islam strictly prohibits. The reported death of Attallah sparked angry protest Monday outside the Libyan embassy in Cairo, as dozens of demonstrators threw stones at the building, tore down Libyan flags and broke the name-plaque of the mission. And they rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud hostile to the Egyptian government, accusing authorities of having done nothing to assist the Copts locked away Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in Libya. |
| Posted by:Fred |