Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo (pictured) and Nour Fayez Ibrahim Girgis were released from prison on 23 January after spending over three years in pre-trial detention on blasphemy charges. They had both been involved in a Facebook group for people wishing to convert from Islam to Christianity, and while they are no longer in detention the Egyptian authorities have not dropped the charges against them.
Christian convert Abdulbaqi, who is originally from Yemen, has been reunited with his wife and five children in Canada and is reported to be well and thankful for his supporters’ prayers and advocacy during his detention. He is continuing to fight his legal battle with support from ADF International, which helped secure his release by submitting his case to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Details about the location and physical condition of Nour Girgis, who was reportedly tortured in prison, have not been released.
Abdulbaqi was arrested in December 2021 after appearing on a Christian TV channel where he talked about his conversion and the persecution faced by Christians in Yemen. He was living as a UNHCR-registered asylum seeker in Egypt, where he had fled because of death threats he received in Yemen after converting to Christianity.
Abdulbaqi was moved between several detention centres while his trial was repeatedly postponed. He suffers from heart, liver and kidney disease and in April 2024 prison authorities denied him medical treatment for chest pains. Later in the year he went on a medication and hunger strike to protest his unjust detention. During his time in prison Abdulbaqi was not allowed to have a Bible but exchanged verses in handkerchiefs with two other Christians, which was a great source of encouragement and strength.
“I endured many hardships in prison,” he said after his release. “It isn’t right that a government should tear me away from my family, keep me in these awful conditions, only because of the faith in which I peacefully choose to believe. I thank everyone who prayed for me while I was in prison, cared about and followed up on my case, and shared the joy of my release from prison.”
Abdulbaqi’s son Husam Baqi commented, “It is hideous that individuals are not allowed to believe and express their beliefs freely and are imprisoned or killed for their faith.”
ADF International’s Director of Advocacy for Religious Freedom, Kelsey Zorzi, stated: “The arbitrary detention of this husband and father without a criminal trial, and the lack of an opportunity for him to defend himself against alleged offenses, constitutes a severe violation of human rights. The peaceful expression of one’s religious convictions cannot a crime – not in Egypt, nor anywhere else in the world. This case shows the extremity of unchecked government censorship in the online age. The world must take note.”
Under Egyptian criminal law the longest someone can be held without trial for a serious crime is two years. The two Christians should have been released or had their trials start by December 2023.
(ADF International, Morning Star News, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom)
Photos: ADF International