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CAIRO: An Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity and then took the unprecedented step of seeking official recognition for the change said he has gone into hiding following death threats.
The man, Mohammed Hegazy, who sparked controversy when pictures of him posing with a poster of the Virgin Mary were published in newspapers, was shunned by his family and threatened by an Islamist cleric vowing to seek his execution as an apostate.
“I know there are fatwas to shed my blood, but I will not give up and I will not leave the country,” the 25-year-old Hegazy said in an interview from his hideout.
Hegazy caused turmoil when he took the unusual step of going to court to change his religion on his national ID card. His first lawyer filed the case, but then quit after the uproar; his second is still considering whether it is worth pursuing.
Hegazy said he received telephoned death threats before he went into hiding in an apartment with his wife, a Muslim who took the name Katarina when she converted to Christianity several years ago. She is four months pregnant.
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He said he wants to change the religion on his ID for two reasons: to set a precedent for other converts and to ensure that his child can openly be raised Christian. He wants his child to get a Christian name on his birth certificate and eventually marry in a church.
That would be impossible if Hegazy’s official religion is Muslim, because a child is registered in the religion of the father.
There is no Egyptian law against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition takes precedent. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death, though killings are rare and the state has never ordered or carried out an execution on those grounds.
Most Muslims who convert usually practice their new religion quietly or leave the country. Egypt is overwhelmingly Muslim. Only 10 percent of the 76 million population is Christian, and converts are typically ostracized by their families. If the conversion becomes known, they may receive death threats from militants or harassment by the police, who use laws against insulting religion or disturbing public order to target them.
Christians who become Muslim may get their new religion entered on their IDs and face little trouble from officials, though they, too, are usually thrown out by their families.
There have been a few similar cases in other parts of the Muslim world.
In May, Malaysia’s highest court refused to recognize the conversion of a Muslim woman to Christianity, saying the case should be handled by the religious authorities.
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian police have detained two Egyptian Christians for their work on the Web site of a Christian Arab group based in Canada, police sources said on Thursday.
Named as Adel Fawzi and Peter Ezzat, the two worked for the Middle East Christian Association, which has its headquarters in Ontario and has a Web site with the address www.m-e-c-a.com.
Unnamed lawyers had complained to the prosecutor general that the organization and its Web site “insulted Islam and the prophet Mohammad on behalf of diaspora Copts,” said one police source, who asked not to be named.
It was not immediately clear what kind of work Fawzi and Ezzat did for the organization which has a mission statement calling for secularism, and equality and full citizenship for Christians living in the Middle East.
Headlines on the Web site include: “Islam began alien and will revert to being alien,” “Is Mohammad a messenger from God?” “This Web site reveals the true face of Islam.”
Copts living abroad, especially those in North America, have tended to be more hostile towards Muslims and towards the Egyptian government than Copts living inside Egypt.
Also Sunday, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf addressed more than 600 Afghan and Pakistani tribal leaders at a jirga, or tribal council, aimed at finding ways to stem Afghanistan’s rising bloodshed
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan: Suspected Islamic militants decapitated one Afghan man and shot dead another after accusing them of spying for the United States in a tribal region in northwestern Pakistan, an intelligence official said Sunday.
The body of one slain man, which villagers spotted early Sunday, was dumped by the side of a road on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal region, where helicopters also army raided a suspected militant facility, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make media comments.
A note written in the locally spoken Pashto language that was found with the body identified the man as Habibur Rehman of Zurmat tribe from Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, the official said.
The note said that Rehman was spying for the United States in Miran Shah and Mir Ali, another North Waziristan town, and received US$200 a month from the U.S. for the job, he said.
Witnesses said that the man’s head, hands and legs had been severed and the victim appeared to be in his 30s and he wore a small beard.
The note warned that no one should perform a funeral for the slain man, the official said.
The body of the other Afghan was found near a bazaar in the town of Dattakhel, west of Miran Shah. A Pashto-language note accused him of being a U.S. spy and identified him as Mohammed Ameer from Afghanistan’s Paktika province, the official said.
Militants are blamed for attacking people suspected of spying for U.S. and Pakistani authorities in the region, which borders Afghanistan, and where al-Qaida- and Taliban-linked fighters operate.
Scores of people — including Afghan refugees and Pakistani tribesmen and clerics — have been killed in such attacks in the region in recent years.
Pakistan has deployed some 90,000 troops to its regions bordering Afghanistan, including North Waziristan, to track down militants.
But U.S. and Afghan officials say militants still have bases in Pakistani territories from where they orchestrate attacks inside Afghanistan.
Violence has increased in the Pakistani region in recent weeks and militants, who renounced a peace deal with authorities last month, have since then staged almost daily attacks on security forces.
Pakistan army helicopters strafed a suspected militant weapons storage facility Saturday afternoon west of Miran Shah, but there were no reports of casualties, the army’s top spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said.
Arshad said there was no information on any militant casualties in the raid.
The targeted facility in a rugged region, about 40 kilometers (24 miles) from Miran Shah, also included a residential area, another intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because he did not have the authority to make media comments.
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