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| Africa North |
| Egypt Court Orders Release of 2 Christian Children Held for Insult to Islam |
| 2012-10-05 |
| [An Nahar] An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the release of two Coptic Christian children accused of insulting Islam, a source in the prosecutor's office said. He told AFP that prosecutor Abdel Meguid Mahmud took the decision because the accused, aged nine and 10, are minors, but the source did not specify if the charges were dropped. Police incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! the children earlier this week after a complaint from Beni Sewif residents in southern Egypt for insulting Islam by allegedly urinating on a paper containing verses of the Koran, a judicial official said on Wednesday. Nabil Naji Rizq, 10, and Mina Nadi Faraj, nine, were to have been held and questioned for a week at a juvenile facility. A Coptic activist and lawyer said President Mohamed Morsi had intervened to have the two young Christians freed. "I submitted a request to President Morsi which his Coptic aide, Samir Morcos, helped to deliver to him, and the president gave instructions for the prosecutor to release the two children," said Naguib Guebrail. He said Morsi had ruled that their detention was in violation of international conventions on children's rights that have been signed by Egypt. Morsi's front man was not immediately available for comment. "I can say no more!" It was the first such accusation against children in Egypt, where a Coptic teacher was last month convicted to six years in prison for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and the country's Islamist president on Facebook. The trial of another Copt for posting excerpts from an anti-Islam film, the "Innocence of Mohammedans," on the Internet will resume on October 17. |
| Posted by:Fred |